BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE : Tuesday 10th September 2024

I saw the M Rated 'BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE' earlier this week, and this American fantasy comedy horror film is Co-Produced and Directed by Tim Burton and is the sequel to Burton's 1988 film 'Beetlejuice' which grossed US$75M off the back of a US$15M production budget and garnered seven award wins (including the Academy Award for Best Make-Up) plus another eleven nominations from around the awards and festivals circuit. In the intervening years the film's success gave rise to an animated TV series, video games and a 2018 stage musical. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing as the Opening Night film presentation at the Venice International Film Festival in late August before its worldwide release from last week. It has so far grossed US$173M off the back of a US$100M production budget and has garnered generally positive critical acclaim.

Set thirty-six years after the events of the first film, and in the present day Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is the host of a supernatural talk show called 'Ghost House', produced by her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux). During the taping of a segment, she has a vision of the demon Betelgeuse, who haunted her family thirty-six years previously, in the audience. Taking a sudden break from filming Lydia learns from her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) about the death of her father Charles who died while travelling back from Brazil when his plane crashed into the sea and he was eaten by a shark. While driving back to Winter River for the funeral service, the surviving Deetz family pick up Lydia's estranged teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), from boarding school. Astrid is a complete non-believer in ghosts, demons and all things afterlife which her mother so sternly propagates, stating that she believes only that which she can see and in science. Following the funeral services, Rory proposes to Lydia in front of the attendees, which she reluctantly agrees to, causing Astrid to flee and meet Jeremy Frazier (Arthur Conti), who invites her over prior to the wedding at midnight on Halloween - two days hence.

Later while in the attic of their former home, Astrid discovers a box of items belonging to her father Richard (Santiago Cabrera), who disappeared two years earlier, and an ad to contact Betelgeuse. She learns that Jeremy is actually a ghost seeking her help to restore his life, at which point Astrid concedes that her mother was right all along. They enter the afterlife after he has Astrid recite an incantation from the 'Handbook for the Recently Deceased'. 

Discovering Jeremy is dead and his past as the murderer of his mother and father who was then killed by breaking his neck while falling from his own treehouse, and thereafter being trapped to within the confines of the house for the last 23 years, Lydia reluctantly calls upon Betelgeuse to help retrieve Astrid. He agrees but demands that Lydia marry him, allowing him to stay in the mortal world and evade Delores (Monica Belluci), his vengeful ex-wife who in life was a mysterious soul-sucking witch who poisoned Betelgeuse several centuries earlier during the Black Plague before he killed her with an axe in retaliation, and chopping her up into multiple pieces. Delores has returned and using a staple gun pieces herself back together. Meanwhile, Delia conducts a ceremony at Charles' grave using two live snakes she believed were no longer venemous, that bite and kill her. 

Lydia agrees to the marriage, and Betelgeuse and she are transported into the afterlife train station in an attempt to stop Astrid from boarding the 'Soul Train', which transports souls into the beyond. By reciting the incantation, Astrid was tricked into swapping places with Jeremy in order for him to regain his life. She recognises one of the station's employees as her father Richard, who rescues her and Lydia while Betelgeuse sends Jeremy down into the depths of Hell.

Hunted by ghost detective and former B-movie action star Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) for bringing Lydia into the afterlife, Betelgeuse agrees to help Delia find Charles if she helps him find Lydia, who along with Astrid was ushered away and returned to Winter River by Richard. At a church in the mortal world, Lydia and Astrid arrive as Rory waits at the altar, watched on patiently by the reverend Father Damien (Burn Gorman).

Betelgeuse, needless to say, hijacks the wedding, injecting Rory in the neck with a truth serum to reveal his true intentions to marry Lydia for her money. Enraged, she punches Rory, knocking him out. As Betelgeuse prepares to marry Lydia, Delores arrives to confront him, along with Wolf and his team. Using the handbook as a guide, Astrid unleashes a giant sandworm through a portal she painted on the floor into the church that eats Delores and Rory, while Betelgeuse freezes Wolf and his men to the spot where they stand.

Astrid reveals that Betelgeuse violated the rules of the handbook by bringing Lydia into the afterlife, thwarting the wedding and allowing Lydia to return him to the afterlife by blowing him up like a balloon which then explodes with the remnants floating back down to the floor before igniting in a puff of smoke and flame. Afterward, Lydia and Astrid reassure Delia of their love for her as she is escorted to the afterlife by Wolf. She soon reunites with Charles before boarding the Soul Train bound for Heaven. Sometime later, Lydia films the final segment of her last episode of 'Ghost House', opting to spend time with Astrid and travelling the world. Despite this, she continues to have nightmares about Betelgeuse, including one in which Astrid gives birth to his 'mini-me' child. 

It must be said that there is much to like about this trip down memory lane for those of us old enough to have enjoyed the 1988 original, and it's encouraging to see Director Tim Burton back on form and delivering us his trademark zany no holds barred fantastical horror comedy offering that still packs a punch. It's not entirely necessary to be familiar with the 1988 original, as this film stands firmly on its own two feet and ably fills in any backstory as it moves along to bring the viewer up to speed on what has gone before. Keaton slips back into his role of Betelgeuse like he's never been away, as do Ryder and O'Hara for the most part, ably supported by Ortega, but as for the other principle cast members they are left largely under developed and left wallowing in multiple plot twists and turns many of which prove to be dead ends. The film certainly looks the part, but with 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Burton has sacrificed substance in favour of style. 

'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ARGYLLE : Tuesday 6th February 2024.

I saw the M Rated 'ARGYLLE' earlier this week at my local multiplex, and this spy action comedy film is Co-Produced and Directed by Matthew Vaughn whose previous feature film Directorial credits include his debut with 'Layer Cake' in 2004, then 'Kick-Ass' in 2010, 'X-Men : First Class' in 2011, 'Kingsman : The Secret Service' in 2014, 'Kingsman : The Golden Circle' in 2017 and 'The King's Man' in 2021. The film was released last week too in the US, cost about US$200M to produce, has so far recovered just US$41M, has garnered generally negative critical reviews and is apparently the first in a trilogy of films, with a third trilogy of films coming from Vaughn's Marv Studio that will see a crossover with the 'Kingsman' franchise.

Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), is the reclusive and introverted author of a series of best-selling espionage novels, whose idea of bliss is a night at home with her computer and her cat, Alfie (whom she adores and takes everywhere with her). She has just completed the draft of her fifth book in the hugely successful 'Argylle' series and calls her mother Ruth (Catherine O'Hara) for her opinion. Her mum read through the draft the previous night and thought is was great but the closing chapter needed more work, rather than leaving it as a cliffhanger for the sixth book in the series. Elly travel by train to visit her Mum so that they can complete the story together with a more concrete ending.

On the train journey, Elly is saved from an ambush by an actual spy, Aidan Wylde (Sam Rockwell), who explains to her that a devious organisation, known as the Division, has targeted her because her Argylle novels seem to have an uncanny knack of predicting their future. Aidan travels with a reluctant Elly to London, England in a private jet (with Elly admitting that she has a deep rooted fear of flying and it is her first time in a plane), hoping that her next chapter will reveal how to stop the Division. 

Once in London, the pair search for a Masterkey' that would help expose the Division that Elly had also referenced in her novels. After fending off a small and very well equipped army of the Division's agents, the pair decamp to a run down hotel to rest up and get refreshed. While Aidan is in the bathroom supposedly taking a shower, Elly overhears him on the phone speaking to someone about how he wants to put a bullet in her head. Elly calls her parents for help who get on the first plane bound for London, and agree to meet in a suite at The Savoy Hotel. As Ruth and Barry Conway (Bryan Cranston) arrive, Aidan reveals that they are in fact both operatives working for the Division sent to capture her, forcing him and Elly to fend them off before fleeing the scene, chased down by a group of the Division's agents. 

Escaping to France, Aidan and former CIA Deputy Director Alfred Solomon (Samuel L. Jackson) who resides in a high tech winery, reveal that Argylle is not entirely fictional and that Elly is in fact agent Rachel Kylle who was captured and brainwashed by the Division five years ago by the two people masquerading as her parents. She put her suppressed memories into her novels. With the latest Argylle novel, Elly was about to reveal the whereabouts of the Masterkey before her cover was blown.

Aidan and Rachel travel to Saudi Arabia, where they retrieve the Masterkey from Saba Al-Badr, the Keeper of Secrets (Sofia Boutella) but are soon cornered by the Division and are knocked out and brought to the Division's base. Ritter (Bryan Cranston), the Division's Director, reveals that Rachel was one of their most loyal assets, after which she offers to interrogate Aidan, subsequently shooting him in the chest. She also locates Alfred for them, but reveals that she in fact sent him the Masterkey, betraying the Division. Ritter stops the transmission and she and a surviving Aidan (after he has plugged himself with four shots of adrenalin) fight their way through the base, which turns out to be an oil tanker far out to sea, eventually killing him. Ruth, who pretended to be Rachel's mother previously, uses a mental trigger code to turn her on Aidan, until she is killed, after which Alfred finally receives the message at his French winery.

Agents Argylle, Wyatt (John Cena) and Keira (Ariana DeBose) the fictional agents from her novels are seen aboard a speedboat fleeing the oil tanker before it explodes into a ball of flame, with Elly's voiceover saying that for the first time Agent Argylle was free. In the closing scene Rachel resumes her novelist persona, and publishes her final novel in the series, where at a reading, the real Argylle reveals himself, much to her shock and confusion. In a post-credit scene, set some twenty years prior, a young Argylle is seen to be ordering a drink at The King's Man pub, where he is revealed to be a Kingsman agent, with the first novel being based on his life.

I didn't hate 'Argylle' but then I also didn't love it, and it some how manages to traverse the line between 'John Wick' (creative action aplenty) and 'Get Smart' (spy comedy romp) aided by some questionable CGI effects, an overly convoluted plot with more twists and turns than you could ever hope to poke a stick at, an excessive run time of two hours twenty minutes, but is just about saved by an ensemble cast who seem to be all in on the silliness most notably Howard, Rockwell and Cavill. Mathew Vaughn here once again demonstrates his skill at the colourful over-the-top action set pieces, but there is really very little new here that we haven't already seen in his previous 'Kingsman' and 'Kick-Ass' franchises, and so Mr. Vaughn, perhaps it's time for a radical rethink of your future filmography. 

'Argylle' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-