Blu-Ray Review:

Beetlejuice

By Jason Gillard

*Screenshots are not from the Blu-Ray source.

Movie

It's hard to describe this movie, but I will try. It's about a couple who dies after spending a lot of time to make their house their own. New people are moving in and plan to wreck all that they have created.  The deceased couple try to scare the new inhabitants out, but end up becoming the star attraction,  so they turn to Beetlejuice for help.  Tim Burton is certainly a man with a vivid imagination and this film definitely has imagination in spades, some might even call it odd or weird.  I personally love the film and think it's great fun.  The scene where they try to scare the new couple out of the house by making everyone dance around the table is great!  The movie also has some stop-motion work in it, which I can only assume helped Burton when making the Nightmare Before Christmas.  The movie stars Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as the happy homeowners and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice.  The movie is funny, has some pretty interesting special effects and a great soundtrack.  If you have not seen the film before I suggest you give it a chance!

8 out of 10

Video

To sum up the transfer I think I can do it in one word and that word is decent.  The movie is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and is 1080p.  The picture is pretty clean with little to no print damage or dirt.  The colours are a mixed bag, sometimes they pop off the screen and in other scenes they just appear dull.  Black levels are inconsistent too, with some scenes being fine and others looking slightly muddy.  After saying all that, it's probably the best this film has ever looked, but it's just not up there with the calibre of other catalog releases.

7.5 out of 10

Audio

You get a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack, but the audio is decidedly center channel heavy.  Occasionally you will hear the rear surrounds kick in. For a Dolby TrueHD track it just doesn't have that crispness that I have heard in other releases. Plus with the audio mainly coming out of the front speakers you don't get that enveloping sound like you would in a more recent movie soundtrack. The audio comes across clear though and Danny Elfman's score also comes across nice and clear, but I was honestly expecting more.

7 out of 10

Extras

For the 20th anniversary of this film Warner Bros should have pulled out all the stops and provided us with some great extras.  Actually what they have done is made no attempt to include anything worthwhile.  All you get for extras are 3 episodes of the Beetlejuice cartoon series, with worse than VHS quality.  You also get a music only track of Elfman's score. Again I think they dropped the ball here only having a regular 5.1 track instead of the TrueHD track. You also get a theatrical trailer that is SD.  I guess I should also mention there is a collectible booklet included, but it's only a fold out piece of paper with pictures of the creatures in the movie and some cute ghost tips.  I had high hopes for the extras on this release and I am really disappointed.  I am going to struggle to give it a 1 out of 10.

1 out of 10

Overall

This release is really a disappointment for me.  I was expecting extras that were worthwhile and all I got was a few cartoons.  If you're a big fan of the movie and want better picture quality then you should pick it up.  If you're not a huge fan, then I say skip it!

6 out of 10

Beetlejuice is available now from Amazon.com