When dealing in long-awaited sequels to iconic classics, one’s expectations must be kept firmly in check if there are any hopes of enjoying the film. It’s so rare that we get something transcendent like T2: Trainspotting or The Color of Money, instead getting fare like Dumb & Dumber To, which tend not just to disappoint, but to misunderstand the entire purpose of the original film. It’s hard to see the lesser films as anything but cynical cash-grabs, and in a cinematic landscape that is overflowing with nostalgia bait, it becomes even harder to watch any of it without a fair amount of eye-rolling detachment. In the case of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which arrives 36 years after the original film, it’s even easier to want to dismiss it entirely, given the fact that Tim Burton’s recent filmography, for all the spirals and paleness included within, has not been as replete with bangers as it once was. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that if anyone could take on a cash-grab project and whiff it entirely, it’s him.
That said, Tim Burton is also the only person on the planet who could pull off something as unnecessary as a Beetlejuice sequel, and to do so with vision and style.
Luckily for us, against all odds, the latter situation is the case. There’s simply no way to even come close to the sheer imagination of the original film, but as far as sequels to masterpieces go, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice justifies its own existence well-beyond just having a built-in audience. It’s a bit bloated and unfocused overall, but it’s far from nostalgia bait, and short of a few small contemporary touches, it feels very much of a piece with the original film. The visuals look great, the performers go hard, and Burton seems tapped into an energy that we haven’t seen since Mars Attacks!
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice certainly could have been better, but it’s undoubtedly better than anyone could have reasonably expected.
In the years since the events of the original film, Lydia (Winona Ryder) had become a bit of a celebrity. She hosts her own Zak Bagans-like ghost hunting show called Ghost House, and it has given her a level of fame that doesn’t always sit well with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Lydia is a recent widow, and despite her ability to communicate with the dead, she’s unable to contact her deceased husband. This limit to her powers has Astrid doubting her mother’s supernatural abilities. Unfortunately for Lydia, there’s one ghost whose visage never seems to leave her paranormal line of sight. I’m referring, as you’ve most certainly guessed, to Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).
When Astrid’s rebelliousness puts her soul at risk, Lydia, against all better judgment, considers summoning Ghost With the Most to help out. But here’s the thing: Betelgeuse has problems of his own. Namely, his evil ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) has reappeared and is hunting down her former beau, sucking the life out of anyone and anything that gets in her way.
It’s a preponderance of plot, and it leads to the film feeling less like a whole story and more like a series of vignettes. As a result, the characters, while fun to be with, are as weightless as specters, and the plot beats all have a level of deus ex machina to them. To be sure, the original film ends on a prominent instance of deus ex sandworm, so this is far from off-brand, but back in ‘88, when Beetlejuice was an entirely new concept, it felt like a masterstroke of the pen, resultant of having created a world where anything can happen. Here it feels like a failure of imagination. Why stuff the film with so much and then leave it all hanging out to dry? If I were to fix this issue, it wouldn’t be through the expansion of any one element, but through the elimination of a handful of characters. This is one sequel that didn’t need to go bigger and doesn’t really succeed at doing so. It seems a crime to me to have Monica Belucci primed to straight up SERVE as a stitched-together, vengeful demon and then do basically nothing with her. No lie, after her introduction, anytime she popped up again I found that I’d forgotten she was even in the movie.
That said, this is all exactly the type of stuff that anyone who has ever seen a movie before can expect. It’s textbook sequelitis. Luckily for us, it’s a result of trying too hard rather than not enough, and that makes all the difference. At the end of the day Beetlejuice Beetlejuice comes through where it counts.
First and foremost, it’s very funny. Much like the original film, most frames are packed wall-to-wall with gags, while committed actors spout quippy dialogue with verve. A notable performance comes from Justin Theroux as Rory, Lydia’s assistant and lover. He’s one of those pretend woo-woo types who talks a big metaphysical game, but is just the same old greedy capitalist we’ve all grown to hate. Another outstanding performance comes from Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, a former action movie star who, after dying in a grenade stunt gone wrong, is now an afterlife detective. His mortal vanity is still very much alive, even if half his skull is missing. It’s Catherine O’Hara, surprising no one, who steals the whole picture. Her Delia is just as pretentious and clueless as we remember her, but in the decades since the original film, she and Lydia have come to a rather charming understanding. This is helped by the fact that Delia, like her step-daughter, is now also a widow, as well as one of the few people who can empathize over the events of the first film.
And it should be noted that the way they handle the death of her husband, who was played by a very criminal man, is perfectly cruel and delightful. Remember when they killed off Chef in South Park?
There are plenty of gags that don’t work or, at the very least, don’t make sense (why the architects of the afterlife have decided to ape Soul Train when designing the literal train it uses to transport souls around is beyond me — but man did it make me laugh). But for every gag that falls flat there are five more that hit hard. Similar to the original film, just about every frame of this colorful adventure is tasked with juggling a killer visual gag, a clever bit of wordplay, and a shoot-for-the-moon performance, and never does it feel like they’re trying too hard. For all the damage done by the excess of plot, it’s remarkable how efficiently so many laughs are put forth. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is one of the outright funniest films of 2024.
As for the titular demon, it’s surreal to see Michael Keaton back in Juice drag once again. He falls back into the character effortlessly and seems to be having a blast, even if his performance isn’t nearly as energetic as it was 36 years ago. And how could it be? It’s a tall order to have a man in his seventies rolling around on the ground and being overtly physical in the same way that he did in his thirties, and while it’s a bit disappointing to see see a slightly less unhinged (and markedly less perverted) Betelgeuse, it all makes sense in the context of the script: at the film’s outset, Betelgeuse has taken a position as a company man. He’s gone legit, as so many former rock-and-rollers tend to do. He now runs an office, and his underlings are all clones of that shrunken head guy we all remember from the first film. I don’t know why there are multiple identical shrunken head guys, or why they all seem to be a species now rather than unfortunate explorers of the Amazon (again, plenty of gags make no sense), but it’s worth not asking questions since they bring so many laughs (and in one instance, tears).
The shrunken head guy is one of only a few direct bits of nostalgia-bait, which is what elevates this sequel above so many others. Any nod toward the previous film comes across relatively organically, with the bulk of the story focusing on new characters and new bits of inspired design instead of applying shine to old material. As for said shine, yeah, it’s there. Movies, for a variety of reasons, simply don’t look like they used to. Even so, Burton has taken pains to make sure that this film looks as similar to its predecessor as possible. Almost all of the gruesome designs of the afterlife are created in-lens — CGI is used only as an enhancement rather than the base of the effect. The only notable exceptions are one moment (which you’ve seen in the trailer) where Betelgeuse goes googly-eyed and it looks godawful, and the sandworms, which are now completely CGI. The latter gets away with it on account of how it’s handled. The worms still move with that weird anti-reality that their original claymation form made artful.
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Seth Grahame-Smith, based on characters created by Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson
Starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara
Rated PG-13, 104 minutes
