Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Burn Gorman
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
105 mins. Rated PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a movie that was never going to happen. For decades, we’d heard stories about the fabled attempts at trying to get a sequel off the ground, and it doesn’t inherently seem like a project that should be difficult to tackle, as long as you could retain the brilliant Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands) at the helm and Michael Keaton (Spider-Man: Homecoming) as the titular Ghost-with-the-Most. Even so, the project languished in development hell for decades, and its potential sequel became legendary, as Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian made the rounds in Hollywood as the zany follow-up that could’ve been. Now, in 2024, we’ve been hit with the legacy sequel that I’ve been very much looking forward to, trepidation be damned. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does not feature Hawaii, and it’s a little been-there, done-that, but when the THERE and the THAT are this much fun, it doesn’t matter so much.

Following a personal tragedy, the Deetz family has returned home to Winter Ridge to mourn. Lydia (Winona Ryder, Black Swan), now a mother herself, has made a living on her connection with the paranormal, while her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, X) has tried to distance herself from the family’s legacy. When Astrid accidentally discovers the portal to the afterlife, Lydia and stepmother Delia (Catherina O’Hara, Home Alone) must get the help of bio-exorcist Beetlejuice, who is dealing with his own problems when a former lover begins hunting him.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the kind of legacy sequel that is mostly more-of-the-same, but considering that the first film is so unique, even among Burton’s filmography, it didn’t feel as overplayed as other long-returned follow-ups. It’s also very overstuffed, and some of the subplots feeling totally unnecessary to the proceedings. The sequences following Delores (Monica Bellucci, The Matrix Reloaded) hunting for Beetlejuice don’t really add to much by the film’s end. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll never complain about Bellucci, but it feels like this thread was meant to be more and then was rewritten into obscurity. Willem Dafoe (Poor Things) shines as a dead actor-turned-afterlife-detective who has a little more to do in the narrative, and Jenna Ortega’s Astrid surprises with the story of childhood innocence interrupted by ghostly consequence gives a lot of life to this tale of death. There’s a lot going in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, likely too much to give it narrative purpose, but I was lost in the joy I felt seeing the return of these beloved characters and all the new ones introduced this time around.

That’s the key to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. This is Tim Burton’s best film in years because it feels like material well-suited to his strengths and one that he’s passionately invested in. There’s great care in ensuring that this film comes together in a satisfying way, and even with the overstuffed narrative, Burton and his cast are having a blast and that comes through in the finished product regardless of its storytelling faults.

A fun movie experience is a fun movie experience, even when a movie shows its faults on its sleeves. Sure, it’s bloated, but the characters, new and old, are mostly successfully rendered (still not sure about that Justin Theroux character, though), and of the many subplots, it does feel like Burton and company knew that they may not get to make 5 more sequels, so they just jammed all the sequel plots in this one, and each is still a lot of fun, even some of the more head-scratching ones. As a lifelong Beetlejuice fan, I was able to enjoy what’s on the screen despite questioning the resurrection of Delores or how Beetlejuice ended up in the position he’s in at the film’s start. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice functions as a bit of an homage to the cartoon as well as a proper sequel and a damn fun entry point for new fans. I’m looking forward to the many Halloweens in which this film and the original will be double-featured.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton’s Batman, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton and Mike Johnson’s Corpse Bride, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, click here.
For my review of Tim Burton’s Dumbo, click here.