Off to the Races! A Review of F1: The Movie

 directed by Joseph Kosinski

written by Ehren Kruger and Kosinski

Slight disclaimer: I had low expectations for F1: the Movie, for two main reasons, the first being that the lead character was played by a sixty-one year old man, and the second being the apparent enthusiasm of F1 management for the content of the film. I get that FOM had to buy in to the movie for it to get made, but it makes me uncomfortable sometimes when the subject of a film embraces it a little too enthusiastically.

Fortunately, F1 far exceeded my humble expectations for it, delivering a genuinely memorable viewing experience and arguably the best car racing movie since 2019's dynamite Ford vs. Ferrari.  

Racecar driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) once a rising star in Formula One in the 1990s whose F1 career was cut short by a horrific accident, has spent the last three decades driving in a variety of different racing series all over the world, living out of his van and driving from one race to the next.  One day, however, an old teammate of his, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) tracks him down after he has just won at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and makes him an offer he cannot refuse: a chance to drive in F1 again. Ruben owns a team, APX GP, that has spent the last three years at the back of the grid, without scoring a single point.  It's midway through the season and Ruben is desperate for results, or else the board of directors will sell the team.  He's got a talented but arrogant rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) driving one of his team's two cars, but the other seat has just been vacated by a driver jumping ship.  Sonny refuses at first, but then realizes that he has unfinished business with F1 and takes the plane to England. 

From there, he finds himself thrown back in the deep end, clashing egos with Pearce and butting heads with his new bosses, Team Principal Kim Bodnia (Kaspar Smolinski) and Technical Director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) and of course, having to face off against 20 of the most talented racecar drivers on the planet. Will Sonny and Joshua be able to put aside their differences and work together long enough to get the team the results needed to keep it from getting sold off and scrapped?

Chances are if you've seen a sports movie with plucky underdogs as the heroes, you've seen everything this film has to offer, story-wise.  Director and co-writer Joseph Kosinski doesn't seek to break any new ground here, and none is broken. Fortunately, though, he fills his cast with capable actors who deliver solid performances and have good chemistry together. Brad Pitt has been touted by several reviewers as having a crazy charisma that sells the movie, regardless of how improbable it is that someone his age would be allowed to race a Formula One car in any kind of competitive capacity, and while I'm inclined to agree to an extent, I also think it helps that his other cast-mates are up to the task of selling this somewhat absurd fantasy as well, which is about as believable as a superhero movie when one really thinks about it. In particular Pitt and Bardem have a great chemistry together as former teammates turned driver and team owner and they effectively convey the notion that they have history together, even though the script lets them down a bit at a key point in the film.

Honestly, the less said about the script, the better.  The attempt to sell the reasons for why a fifty-something would even be considered for a driving seat, complete with the obligatory tragic backstory, was heroic but still chuckle-inducing, almost as much as the "built for combat" line that featured heavily in the marketing.  Fortunately, like I said, even the very worst dialogue and story contrivances were mostly masked by some really winning performances from the whole cast. 

Charming performances however, would mean nothing if Kosinski and his crew didn't get the most important thing right: the racing. I am very pleased to report that in this respect, the film not only delivers but exceeded my already lofty expectations for how good the racing would look. For all its silliness, after all I deeply enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick for its jaw-dropping flight sequences, and so I knew what kind of technical proficiency Kosinski, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, and their various crew members brought to bear on this production, and suffice it to say, they brought their "A" game.  With dozens of car-mounted cameras Kosinski and company put viewers right in the thick of the action, capturing all nine races depicted in a truly breathtaking fashion, especially when coupled with the amazing sound mixing that, if anything, flattered the 1.6-liter turbo engines that aren't quite regarded as the most sonorous power plants the sport has ever heard.  Still the races look and sound amazing, in no small part to the seamless mix of practical photography, incredible stunt driving and some judiciously inserted computer-generated imagery.  In this respect, this film stands head and shoulders over what James Mangold and his crew delivered in Ford v. Ferrari, which is no mean feat. 

Oh, and film music deity Hans Zimmer delivers an absolute banger of a music score. This is a bit of an update from his last Formula One-themed movie, 2013's Rush, and his work here is just as good as it was back then.

 

I caught this in IMAX, and while for some reason the dialogue  where I watched was compromised by echoes, in every other respect the experience was elevated by the amazing images and the roar of those incredible machines, so to my mind, it's worth the premium.  Whatever its flaws, this is definitely a movie I was glad to see in a movie theater.  

8.5/10

I Have...Questions: A SPOILER-FILLED Discussion of "Thunderbolts."

(SPOILER ALERT)

 I genuinely enjoyed Marvel Studios' latest offering: the action film Thunderbolts which featured as its protagonists mostly C-list Marvel characters.  I liked it for its strong performances, good chemistry between its actions, solid action set pieces, and its strong emotional core.  That said, it left me with a lot of questions, most of which I cannot really delve into without wading into spoiler territory, and all of which have me excited to see more of this excellent team of antiheroes on the big screen. In no particular order they are:

1.     WHAT'S IN THE SECRET COCKTAIL THAT GAVE BOB HIS GODLIKE POWERS?

For those who don't know, the Sentry came into existence at Marvel as a fake Silver Age character, a purported creation of Marvel godfather Stan Lee and the non-existent artist Artie Rosen, whose name was a mashup of two Silver Age Marvel staffers Joe Rosen and Artie Simek.  As such, his origin was as about as simple as it gets: as an anxious teen, he took a version of the super soldier serum developed by one of his professors at school, and gained the power of a million exploding suns.   MCU Bob, on the other hand, was conceived in a universe that has had quite a bit of interconnected lore, so the notion of him getting his Omega-level powers from something as generic as a secret formula not only feels simplistic but like a complete cop-out.  It's fair enough that they didn't dive into it this time around, but I hope they do eventually.

2.   WHAT IS VALENTINA'S SECRET ORIGIN?

One of Bob's many powers, the apparent ability to glimpse into a person's darkest moments, gave us some pretty interesting character moments for key characters like Yelena and John Walker. What intrigued me, though, was the glimpse into Val's traumatic past where she saw her dad get offed by a loan shark. It seems simple enough, but for the fact that it appears to have taken place a long time ago and in Italy. It sounds like some pretty decent prequel material if handled right, and I wouldn't mind seeing that story told somewhere down the line.

3.  WHO ARE SAM WILSON'S AVENGERS?

The end credits scene makes a big deal about the fact that Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are at odds over the use by Bucky's group of the name "Avengers" even though it was basically just thrust on them Val in her desperate gamble to escape accountability.  The thing is, at the end of Captain America: Brave New World, the only "Avengers" are Sam/Cap, Falcon/Joaquin, and not-Sabra/sorta Black Widow, a trio who don't exactly qualify. Granted, there is a 14-month time jump from the end of Thunderbolts* to the end credits scene, so a lot can happen in that time.

4.  WILL MEL BECOME SONGBIRD?

Much has been said about the character played by Geraldine Viswanathan, Val's assistant named only "Mel" but whom fans are certain is a nod to Melissa "Mel" Gold, otherwise known as the supervillain-turned-superhero Songbird. It's definitely something fun to consider, given that Mel is a genuinely likable relatable character, and Viswanathan would cut a nice figure in a superhero suit. 

Well, that's about it for me. Fanboys being fanboys, I'm sure other people have plenty more interesting and in-depth questions than I do, but I'm just happy that there's finally a Marvel film worth asking questions about, for the first time in years. Long may this continue. 

Pleasantly Surprising: A Review of Thunderbolts*

 directed by Jake Schreier

written by Erik Pearson and Joana Calo 

created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley

It had been a while since I truly enjoyed a movie set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As much as I enjoyed last year's Deadpool and Wolverine, that was not, strictly speaking, an MCU film as both those characters were remnants of the Fox Marvel Universe. As many excuses as I have made for Captain America: Brave New World I really didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped I would. I basically hadn't really enjoyed a Marvel movie all that much since 2023's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Fortunately, all that ended when I finally saw Thunderbolts, directed by Jake Schreier and starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Hannah John Kamen as an unusual band of protagonists who can't quite be called heroes but who, for now, are all the world has got. 

The film starts with a spectacular stunt as Yelena (Pugh) skydives off a building in Kuala Lumpur, where she then torches a secret lab on orders of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus). Having buried her sister Natasha a few years back, Yelena is deeply depressed and in the middle of an existential crisis. After meeting up with her father figure, Alexei (Harbour) former super soldier Red Guardian who is now eking out a living as a limo driver,  Yelena asks Val for a change of pace from her covert missions. Val promises to give her just that, but first, she needs to do one more mission for her in a secluded bunker in the middle of nowhere. Val is under intense scrutiny by Congress for her secret, unethical research projects conducted through her shady company O.X.E. and is looking to clean up all evidence of them. Among those looking into her activities is freshman Congressman Bucky Barnes (Stan).  Yelena arrives at the bunker and, to her surprise, finds herself confronting disgraced Captain America John Walker (Russell), the Ghost (John-Kamen), and the Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).  They all fight, but shortly thereafter Yelena and the others realize that they were all sent there to die. The situation becomes even more complicated when a man dressed in pajamas named Bob (Lewis Pullman) appears, seemingly out of nowhere.  In short order, Val and an army of O.X.E.'s security arrive onsite.

Fortunately, Alexei has found out where Yelena is heading by eavesdropping on Val while chauffering for her, and, at the same time, Bucky has hit paydirt because Val's assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), alarmed at the goings-on at the secret bunker, has given him a call, leading him to the bunker, where Yelena and the gang are now fighting for their lives. High jinks ensue.  

What follows is hardly an ideal team-up, but the reluctant allies will need to get it together to face the truly formidable threat that Valentina is about to unleash.

While I had been looking forward to this movie, I didn't quite have high expectations. Captain America: Brave New World was a genuine disappointment but this movie gave off a different, more promising energy in its trailers, and fortunately, it mostly lived up to its promise. 

Most of what worked in this film is stuff that Marvel has done before; practical action set pieces, lots of banter between the leads and some pretty decent action.  They have even touched on mental health before, as Tony Stark quite clearly grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder in Iron Man 3 as a result of the events in The Avengers. 

Still, this film hits a bit differently, as director Jake Schrier and writers Eric Pearson and Jaona Calo apply these tools to tell a story that manages to feel both fresh and familiar at the same time.  As many other writers have already observed, what sets this apart from other Marvel movies is just how much it leans into the emotional trauma of its lead characters, particularly Yelena and Bob.  Pugh and Pullman in particular stand out, but all of the actors do a bang-up job with the characters handed to them. I liked the chemistry, especially the banter between Walker and Yelena, or sometimes Walker and Ghost, as well as the moments in which Alexei is fanboying out over his old hero, the Winter Soldier. 

The action set pieces were quite well-staged, and it was gratifying to know that much of it was practically done, save of course for the stuff that obviously couldn't have been.  

Of course, some of the writing is a bit silly; there are a few too many convenient coincidences for my liking, and the idea of selecting mentally unstable people for experiments that could give them godlike power still feels downright bizarre, but overall the storytelling is thoroughly engaging, thanks to winning performances from everyone involved, especially from Pullman, who, for me at least, is the breakout star of this movie.  

The best part of this movie, for me, was how surprisingly emotional it was; this isn't necessarily something new from Marvel, considering it's brought us gut-wrenching movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but it's uncommon enough that it is a welcome development when one of their lighter movies has a solid emotional core. 

I wouldn't go so far as to proclaim that Marvel's back but I definitely find myself looking forward to July's Fantastic Four: First Steps with a bit more enthusiasm than I used to have.  

8.5/10

Serious Mojo: A Review of Sinners

 written and directed by Ryan Coogler

I am not a horror movie fan, so I was admittedly hesitant to check out Sinners, the latest movie from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, but I have been a Ryan Coogler fan since the first Black Panther, even after he made the sequel without the lead character (a corporate-mandated move if ever there was one). That, coupled with the significant buzz surrounding this film (including the rare convergence of critics and audience scores over on rottentomatoes.com) was enough to help me get over my usual aversion to horror movies, and I am really glad I did.

Probably one reason I enjoyed this a lot more than I would have a "traditional" horror movie is that this movie definitely does not play out like a horror movie. A full forty minutes go by before the vampire promised by the film's marketing even shows up, but that isn't time wasted because in that time, we the viewers have gotten to know the characters, starting with aspiring musician Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) son of the strict preacher Jedidiah (Saul Wiliams) whose twin cousins, former soldiers Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack" (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have come home from Chicago after a brief stint working for Al Capone to set up their very own juke joint.  The movie is set in 1932, right smack in Jim Crow Mississippi, and the brothers, who as soldiers and later as mob enforcers have seen their fair share of violence, just want to carve out a place for themselves. The twins invite Sammie, who shreds a mean guitar, pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson) and also recruit help from people around town to help them out, like Grace Chow (Li Jun Li) and her husband Bo  (Yao) to help stock up on food and other supplies, and Smoke's ex Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) to cook and serve drinks.  An unexpected guest, however, comes in the form of Stack's jilted lover Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who invites herself into the juke joint and won't leave until Stack has heard what she has to say. 

The stage has been set for a magically intoxicating night of music, dancing and drinks by the time the actual vampire Remmick (Jack O' Connell) shows up, on the run from Choctaw Native Americans out to slay him.  At first, Remmick is content to bite and enslave a Ku Klux Clan couple (Peter Dreimanis and Lola Kirke), but when Sammie starts playing and singing, there is something transcendental about his music that draws spirits from the past and the future to him, and draws in Remmick as well, and at that moment, Remmick makes it his goal to get Sammie, even if it means he has to kill or enslave everyone else in the juke joint to do it. The normally tough-as-nails twins soon realize they are in for the fight of their lives.

Everything about this film is positively sumptuous, from its sultry period setting to the lived-in costumes and locations, to the gorgeous cinematography.  This film just adores being on the big screen, and even though I didn't catch it in IMAX I appreciated the panoramic presentation just the same. Coogler clearly loves cinema and at a time when streamers have threatened to make movie theaters irrelevant, films like this offer a stunning riposte. 

Special mention, of course, has to go to Ludwig Goransson's mesmerizing, utterly outstanding score, which is a character all its own in the film. As with Coogler, I've been fan of Goransson's since Black Panther, and what strikes me most about the guy is his versatility; the guitar-heavy score here sounds completely different from just about anything I'd heard from him before (which is admittedly limited to the two Black Panther movies and Creed) but it is just as arresting. At the young age of forty Goransson already has two Oscars for best original score to his name, and I would not be surprised if he added one more very soon. 

Ironically, the horror aspect of the film, if anything, feels like the weaker aspect of the film, particularly the climactic battle in which, after the people still standing at the juke joint have apparently been reduced to a very specific set of characters, suddenly a whole bunch of red shirts jump into the final battle as well. Still, this is a very, very minor quibble, because the movie, up until this point has been pretty much exemplary in terms of pure storytelling. 

Coogler has unquestionably brought his A-game to this film, as have all of his cast members and his collaborators.  

This is a film that absolutely has to be seen. 

10/10

A SPOILER-FILLED Discussion on Captain America: Brave New World

 Once more, SPOILER-ALERT. If you haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled, please look elsewhere.

All right, here we go.

Truth be told, there's very little to spoil about Captain America: Brave New World, that hasn't already been spoiled in the trailers, the foremost of which being Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross' transformation into the Red Hulk, which is all over the film's promotional materials.  That said, an in-depth discussion of the plot and its implications on the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward is only possible by wading into what few spoilers remain.

MUTANT DAWN

For me, the most prominent plot point worth noting here is easily the most obvious, namely the introduction of the metal adamantium, which was left out of the trailers, probably more out of a desire to cut a more brisk trailer than to avoid spoilers.  While the introduction of the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been a question of "when" and not "if, there was the lingering question of how long it would take Kevin Feige to make his move towards making that happen. While the mention of mutants in the little-seen Ms. Marvel and the more widely seen Black Panther: Wakanda Forever felt like soft steps in this direction, the introduction of adamantium in this film is a much more emphatic gesture.

WOULD-BE ARCH VILLAINS INTRODUCED

There are other things worth noting, too, though. I, for one was grateful to see the MCU finally pay off the teaser involving Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel Sterns, aka Mr. Blue at the end of The Incredible Hulk,  in which his gamma-irradiated head began to swell to hint at what was to come. Such was the anticipation to see the Leader, one of the Hulk's most prominent villains, that people even got excited at the thought of him showing up in the She-Hulk TV series a couple of years ago.  

Was the payoff what Hulk fans would have hoped for? In a word, no. The Leader is one of Hulk's most significant bad guys, but he's extremely watered-down here, despite Nelson's best efforts and some nicely creepy makeup. That said, I did like that they finally paid him off, and left room for a better creative team to use him down the line.  That's the advantage of not killing one's bad guys. The same can be said for Giancarlo Esposito's Sidewinder. However poorly handled these characters are, at least they're on the table

ALL-HULKED OUT

While this movie has provided a couple of promising villains a rather muted entry into the MCU, it's also provided a bit of an exit for a longtime MCU character in Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, who only turned into a red Hulk because he was taking meds to keep him alive; meds that, unbeknownst to him, had been supercharged with gamma radiation.  Without the gamma meds, Ross is surely not much longer for this world, and the fact that Marvel cast an 82-year-old Harrison Ford to replace the late William Hurt and not a younger actor suggests to me that they don't see themselves getting that much more mileage out of this character. I wouldn't be surprised if Ross' next appearance is in a funeral or memorial scene. 

BULLET DODGED FOR BUCKY

The movie looks poised to end its theatrical run with more or less a half-billion dollars in global grosses, which is less than half of what its immediate predecessor, Captain America: Civil War made  almost nine years ago, back when Marvel movies were unassailable at the box office.  That said, it never really was going to scale those heights, especially considering that Sam's arc of embracing his identity as Captain Ameria, a much more compelling story than what was on offer here, was already played out in his TV series, and considering that rather than set off in a new, exciting direction, the film borrowed heavily from the  best Captain America film ever, The Winter Soldier.   One section of fandom goes on about how Bucky should have been Cap after Steve Rogers retired, but the truth is he would not have done a whole lot better in this movie than Sam did, so essentially Marvel saved him for what could genuinely be a better film in the upcoming Thunderbolts*.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on this film, but I will be back to share my thoughts on the next Marvel Film coming up: Thunderbolts*!

Picking up Loose Threads: A Review of Captain America: Brave New World (Spoiler-free)

directed by Julius Onah

written by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah and Peter Glanz

Captain America: Brave New World is, for those keeping count, the 35th film Marvel Cinematic Universe film, the fourth one to bear the name "Captain America" and the first film in which someone other than Steve Rogers wears the star-spangled banner and the Vibranium shield, that someone being Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie).  It's a film that has provoked reactions that range from lukewarm to downright hostile. Personally, though, I enjoyed it, even in spite of its many flaws. I was pleasantly surprised by a few things, some of which I can discuss without spoiling key plot points, and some of which I will have to set aside for a separate, spoiler-laden discussion. 

The film begins with Captain America chasing down a group of thieves who have  stolen a highly-valuable asset and have now holed up in a Mexican church, where they plan to meet their mysterious buyer. Sam, aided by his buddy Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and the military, is able to stop the sale and retrieve the asset, which turns out to be a precious metal called adamantium, which has been harvested from the remains of Tiamut, the stillborn Celestial who almost destroyed the Earth in the film The Eternals, which is currently resting in the Indian Ocean.  Retrieving it was crucial because the United States of America, of which Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford) is now the President, is currently negotiating a treaty with Japan and other world leaders to extract the adamantium and distribute it all around the world. 

Ross invites Sam and Joaquin to attend one of his conferences in which he tries to convince world leaders to sign the treaty, but Sam only agrees to go if Ross also invites Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) a soldier who served as Captain America in the 50s but who was locked up for crimes he didn't commit.  Just before the meeting, Ross takes Sam aside and asks him to help him restart the Avengers, which makes Sam distinctly uncomfortable given Ross' spotty history with the Avengers.  That is set aside when Ross begins his pitch to world leaders for the treaty, only for the unthinkable to occur; Bradley and several other people present at the event suddenly try to shoot Ross and other world leaders. Sam, Joaquin and the President's security detail, headed by the no-nonsense Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas) neutralize the threat, but even as Isaiah is carted off to jail again, Sam is convinced something else here is at work and tries in vain to convince Ross to let him investigate what really happened. 

Of course, someone else really is behind what happened, and Sam, Joaquin and President Ross are about to find out who it is and what a threat  he truly poses to the brave new world they are trying to create.

Yes, this movie was deeply flawed. The dialogue was unbelievably clunky at time, the seams at which the plot was taken apart and sewn back together were painfully obvious in some places, and quite sadly, the film really did feel like a lesser version of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I'd be interested to see the YouTube videos comparing key scenes from the two movies, because there are plenty of similarities 

It would be pretty easy to pick apart individual aspects of the production as well: Laura Karpman's omnipresent music score pales next to the work of Alan Silvestri and Henry Jackman, the action choreography, while competent enough, is sometimes all over the place, and the computer generated imagery...well, that's just a low-hanging fruit at this point when it comes to Marvel movie gripes. Roast me all you want, but I did like the Red Hulk scenes, for the most part. I thought they were pretty well-done, all things considered.

What genuinely surprised me was the earnestness of the performances. This, for me, kept the movie afloat when its many foibles threatened to sink it. Anthony Mackie hit all the right notes as a still-reluctant Captain America filled, with both unbelievable courage and crushing self-doubt, and he and Danny Ramirez have a fun, buddy-cop chemistry going on that helps keep the film light.  The most pleasant surprise for me, by far, was Harrison Ford, who at 82 genuinely acted in this movie.  I expected him to phone in his performance, the way he sleepwalked through the recent Star Wars movies and, perhaps even more embarrassingly, in the last Indiana Jones movie, but I'll be darned; he showed up and gave a rousing performance that would have done the late William Hurt proud. Considering that he did this with such a slipshod script, his performance was nothing short of outstanding. 

Finally, I appreciated that this movie picked up story threads from earlier, unloved Marvel properties like The Eternals and found something useful to do with them, and it's nice to see the MCU feeling a bit connected again.  I know it wasn't everyone's cup of tea and I completely get that, but I enjoyed myself. Yes, the MCU has a very long way to go before it reaches the height of Avengers: Endgame again (assuming it ever does) but if nothing else, this movie is at least an improvement on some of its misses of late (including the TV series). 

7/10 

More Nostalgia Plundering: A (Very Late) Review of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

 directed by Tim Burton

written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar

As I write this, this film is now available on every single form of home video, including digital release and physical media like Blu Ray, 4K and DVD.  And yet...I actually watched this film in theaters.

One could say that a very busy schedule kept me from reviewing this film as soon as I saw it, but that would be a lie. The truth is that I spent all that time from September up until right now, grappling with my disappointment over how this movie turned out.

To give a little bit of context: the original 1988 film Beetlejuice is one of my all-time favorite movies. I watched it as a child with my aunt and little sister and enjoyed it immensely.  Years later, I introduced it to my children on DVD, and one of them in particular, of the goth girl persuasion, took to it with nearly the same enthusiasm that I did.  While talks about the sequel had been going on and off again for years, when it became clear that one was on its way, it was more than a movie that my daughter and I were looking forward to: it was a generational experience.  So to say that my daughter and I were disappointed would be an extreme understatement.

So, decades after the first film ended, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is eking out a living as a medium with her own reality show, where she is managed by her beau Rory (Justin Theroux) but is unfortunately estranged  from her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Ironically, her most cordial relationship in her life is with her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) who approaches her with unfortunate news: her father Charles has died.  As a result, in deference to his last wishes, Delia, Lydia and Astrid head back to Winter River, Connecticut, where they moved during the events of the first film, and head back to their old home, only for Lydia to discover that someone else from her past is still gunning for her, none other than the spurned bio-exorcist Betelgueuse (Michael Keaton), who's facing problems of his own in the afterlife, apparently his ex-wife Delores (Monica Belluicci) has broken free of the random packages in which she was stored for some reason, and resumes her quest to murder Betelgeuse that she was unable to fulfil because he had killed her first. His only hope is apparently to marry Lydia or something like that. In the meantime, in Winter River, Astrid finds herself attracted to boy who isn't quite what he seems. Hijinks ensue.   

If the synopsis sounds cluttered, rest assured that's because the plot it's summarizing is. The original movie, in contrast, had a very similar premise: a young couple, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis (who are dismissed from this film with a single line of dialogue) die and find themselves trapped in their house. a living family moves in and makes their lives hell, and so they turn to a "bio-exorcist" named Betelguese to rid them of their problem. Hijinks ensue. Pretty simple, right?

The problem with this movie was that the filmmakers seemed torn between wanting to mine the nostalgia from the first film (look at all the guys with shrunken heads, just like the guy in the first movie!) and wanting to cash in on the popularity of Tim Burton's recent Netflix series Wednesday (let's have Jenna play a rebel again, who falls for the wrong guy...again). The  end result is a middling, muddled film at best, and at worst a bastardization of one of Tim Burton's most original, quirkiest works.  It wasn't all bad, of course; Michael Keaton kills it as the "ghost with the most" while Willem Dafoe entertains as an actor who, for reasons that are never explained, has become a detective in the afterlife. 

I've seen worse movies, but none of those were the long-awaited sequel to one of my favorite films ever, so this one was hard to endure. 

6/10