September 5, 2024 · Watch the official trailer
Bringing characters back from the dead after 36 years requires a real need for new storytelling or an ardent desire from fans to see more of a particular plot or character.
Tim Burton’s 1988 family horror comedy classic “Beetlejuice” is a movie with a lot of nostalgia for audiences who grew up on the playfully antagonistic title character and the magnetic portrayal from Michael Keaton in the role.
Burton and Keaton have reteamed in 2024 for an exceptionally irreverent and aptly named sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which suggests twice the fun, thrills, and chills but fails to maximize on some of the things that made the original a classic.
Set in modern times, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” follows a now grown Lydia Deetz, distant from her own daughter, as she and stepmother Delia return to Winter River for the funeral of her late father Charles only to come spiritually face-to-face with the titular demon once again amid a cast of new characters causing chaos in the small Connecticut town.
The main reason to see the film without a doubt is the wildly goofy charm Keaton imbues Beetlejuice with and the irreverence with which he playfully torments those around him in a pseudo antihero sort of way. Keaton’s elevated take creates the most engaging moments in the sequel with gleeful commitment to the strangeness at hand.
Sadly, there isn’t twice as much of Keaton on screen as one might expect or hope from a movie called “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” as Burton and screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar opt not only to tell the story of three generations of Deetz women but add in additional secondary characters both living and dead to elongate the storyline beyond its capabilities.
Much more than the supporting role she had in 1988, Winona Ryder’s Lydia is the central figure throughout “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and while she’s able to stabilize and ground scenes in some ways, there’s a timidity to her turn thrust upon Lydia due to anxiety that cuts the character off at the knees.
Burton doesn’t make good use of what Ryder brought to the role of a goth teen in the original, attempting to pass the awkward angst onto “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega, who essentially serves as a younger Ryder clone throughout “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
While Ortega is solid here, it’s clear that she’s not given nearly enough to do despite being the third lead of the film, saddled with dead daddy issues with which to sculpt the character and only makes fans of Ortega’s work long for the arrival of a second season of “Wednesday” on Netflix.
Original cast member Catherine O’Hara returns as well as quirky stepmother Delia and her zaniness is a welcome reprieve from some of the more predictable storylines in the sequel.
Burton also does an exceptional job of including her husband Charles without original actor Jeffrey Jones, whose legal troubles essentially removed him from Hollywood and the possibility of appearing in the film. Charles’ appearance in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is also among the visual highlights of a production design team that masterfully brings the bizarreries of Burton’s imagination to life.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is far darker and cruder than the original, making it a perfect step up for adults whose childhood was shaped by Keaton’s 80s irreverence although this film is much less family friendly than its quirky and slightly demonic predecessor. There’s no abhorrent violence in the film, but the gruesome, ghoulish nature of Burton’s mind in playful, comic book-esque ways.
Although there is a significant amount of nostalgia and callbacks to the original both in narrative and visual style, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” lacks the element of haunting that original cast members Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis brought in their storyline.
September might have been a touch too early for the light spookiness of a film clearly meant for a Halloween release, but there’s just enough highs in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to make the lesser scenes worth sitting through in theaters.
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