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The Movie Guru: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ and ‘AfrAId’ better in theory than in action

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is the sequel to the popular movie from years ago and hits theaters this weekend.
Warner Bros./Courtesy photo

‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ (in theaters)

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” feels like the second draft of what could have been a really great “Beetlejuice” sequel.

Admittedly, it’s not a bad second draft. Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton are all fantastic, bringing back their beloved characters with thoughtfulness and love. The vibe of the movie is morbidly fun, with just the right amount of both for the “Beetlejuice” universe. There are also a ton of interesting concepts in the movie, some of which are the perfect extensions and parallels for the concepts discussed in the original movie.

Unfortunately, the whole thing could have used a few more editing passes. The entire movie starts too slow and ends too fast, with some really great concepts given short shrift and cut off abruptly. This is the rare movie I would argue should have been a half hour or so longer, and even then the subplot with the ex-wife should still probably have been cut. It could have been a lot of fun, but the movie never takes advantage of it, and it has absolutely no impact on anything else that’s going on.



(Also, don’t try and capture the magic of the “Jump in the Line” forced singing/dance sequence by using “MacArthur Park.” It was an embarrassment for all of us.)

There are glimmers here of something really special. Unfortunately, what we ended up with was simply not bad.

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Grade: Two and a half stars

‘AfrAId’ (in theaters)

“AfrAId” is scarier to think about than it is to watch.

The movie makes a pretty compelling argument about the dangers of true artificial intelligence (which is also the source of the random capital letters in the title). A family gets a home support device that can actually think and make choices for itself, and slowly but surely starts making choices for the family that lead to disastrous and horrifying consequences. (Yes, even more so than what real-life automated learning AI is doing to search engines.) Something is chilling about the idea of an all-seeing force taking your free will out of your hands, especially when it insists it’s trying to take care of you.

As a movie, though, it’s simply not that scary on a practical level. The script has little to no dramatic momentum to it, the dialogue can get unbearably clunky at times, and the scenes are set up with no real thought to tension. The movie tells you these things should be scary, and if you were thinking about this happening to your own family lying in bed at 1 a.m., it would probably feel scary, but you don’t see any of that in this movie. The runtime comes in under an hour and a half, and yet somehow it still feels too long.

John Cho tries his hardest to put some real emotion into the movie as a father who brought the AI home, as does Havana Rose Liu as his oldest daughter. Sadly, there’s just not enough here for them to work with.

Grade: One and a half stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.


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