Movie Review ~ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

It’s hard not to play favorites when looking over your movie collection.  Sure, you can tell people about the movie you consider the best made, the one with the finest performances, or the one that has had the greatest impact on society since its release.  However, there are always the selections you have a personal interest in, the films that are ‘dealbreakers,’ where you understand people a little bit more if they can’t get behind it the same way you can.  For me, one of those movies is Beetlejuice. 

Released in 1988, my history with the film holds many positive memories, instantly putting it in a different category than most.  I vividly remember my dad taking me to this on a weekday after a  doctor’s appointment that kept me out of school.  I still can’t quite put my finger on what bowled me over so much about the movie. Maybe it was the sheer excitement of having that time together, but I remember responding to the creative look of Tim Burton’s supernatural comedy that pushed the boundaries of makeup, practical effects, and its PG rating.

Burton’s film didn’t just have a major impact on me but effectively cemented its place in pop culture through Michael Keaton’s manic performance.  The character became a living, breathing icon, a phenomenon of the Afterlife that found his grotesque charm toned down for a much-loved animated series that maintained its off-kilter humor.  Then there was the Broadway musical, which proved so popular that it was literally resurrected from the dead after the COVID pandemic briefly shuttered it.  A sequel had been buzzed about for years, with Keaton and co-star Winona Ryder offering updates on its stalled status as screenwriters and ideas came and went.  What’s more, could a continuation of the story even capture a little of the unruly magic of that original company of actors and technicians, a rare instance of down-the-line perfection?

Three and a half decades have passed since audiences first met the unhinged bio-exorcist who loved to stir the pot in his quest to return to the world of the living.  Snatched from the clutches of fans, boutique clothing lines, and other projects, Beetlejuice is back with a follow-up unsurprisingly titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and has done so with most of the OG gang in tow.  The idea of revisiting this world was exciting on one hand and terrifying on the other.  We’ve seen how these long overdue revisits can turn into fan-service disasters, but there are just as many success stories as well.  Thankfully, the wait is worth it, and while it’s overstuffed with macabre mayhem, this (Beetle)juice is fresh.

Failing to marry Lydia Deetz (Ryder, Mermaids) when she was an unhappy Goth teen living in the Winter River home purchased by her father Charles, Beetlejuice (Keaton, The Flash) has been toiling away in a dead-end (literally) job scheming about ways to get her back.  Lydia has mostly moved on with her life, using her “strange and unusual” ability to see dead people to carve out a career as a television ghost hunter.  Estranged from her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega, Scream), Lydia, a widow, has been spending time with her producer Rory (Justin Theroux, Lady and the Tramp), a man she initially met in a support group for spouses that lost their significant others.

Lydia’s stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara, Argylle), is without her significant other as well, although unlike Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, whose explained absence is rather thoughtlessly tossed aside, it is pretty clear what’s happened to Charles (a Claymation sequence stands in for actor Jeffrey Jones who I’m betting was never going to be invited back).  The unexpected death of Charles Deetz is how Delia, Lydia, and Astrid end up back at the house in Winter River, the site of Lydia’s original encounter with Beetlejuice decades earlier. 

This time, Astrid stumbles into trouble in the Afterlife, but the film’s marketing has been uncharacteristically restrained about revealing more about this storyline thread in advance, so we’ll leave it at that.   It allows the Lydia/Beetlejuice thread from the first film to expand into something more significant for the sequel, and screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar seem to have had a terrific time upping the ante with each new fascinating corridor being explored.  Bo Welch’s influence as a consultant on Mark Scruton’s production design is unmistakable, giving us a vivid, reimagined version of the bizarre world he helped build in 1988.  Familiar sights, sounds (and musical numbers) abound, but they aren’t there to jog a fond memory but serve as a building block to a new experience.

Whereas Keaton’s character was almost a supporting role in the first film, he’s been moved front and center for the follow-up, getting ample screen time from the start and reminding us why his recent renaissance has been such a treat.  Time has not dulled his energy.  If anything, he’s committed fully to surpassing his previous outing with hilariously crude jokes (the film really tests the limits of its PG-13 rating) and several gross-out gags, often assisted by dynamite makeup work.  Ryder is also cozy at home here, easily slipping into Lydia’s black-clad world and capturing her deadpan delivery.  It always disappoints me that Ryder is such an infrequent screen presence; fingers crossed we continue to see more of her.

Sharing nearly equal screen time is O’Hara’s delightfully eccentric Delia, who becomes even more self-involved in widowhood.  I was afraid the film would soften her edges, but there’s still that unmistakable delivery only the gifted actress could bring, and she easily steals (graverobs?) every scene she’s in.  Though Ortega is reaching the end of her familiar riff on a sullen stereotype, she again brings a pleasant spark to Astrid (really a Lydia Jr.) and holds her own in a cast of cinema heavyweights. 

With all these talents taking up space, it doesn’t give Theroux and Monica Bellucci (as Delores, Beetlejuice’s centuries-old soul-sucking ex-wife) a chance to leave much of an impression. Both are fine in their roles, but their characters serve more as distractions to the favorites we want to spend time with than essential contributions.  The same is true for Willem Dafoe (Kinds of Kindness), an undead detective investigating dirty dealings in the Afterlife that makes Beetlejuice his newest case.  All three (Theroux, Bellucci, and Dafoe) are around for some of the film’s more creative set pieces but remove them, and the film wouldn’t suffer greatly.

I was most interested in how Burton would fare returning to the practical effects-guided world in which he built his career.  In his previous run of films, he relied on computer-generated creations that lacked the full imagination and realism that physical sets, props, and creatures could represent.  That handmade feel was integral to the first film’s success, and he’s gone back to the basics for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, assembling his dream team of frequent collaborators.  Oscar-winner Colleen Atwood’s costume design is gauzily goth, blending her exquisite eye for detail with the film’s offbeat tone.  Danny Elfman’s score is another highlight, introducing an innovation on his instantly recognizable spine-tingling theme and layering in modernity that makes it nostalgic but colorfully unorthodox.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has many moving parts and big ideas, meaning it takes about thirty minutes to find its groove. It is challenging to juggle new characters while re-establishing the old ones and honoring its original spirit of ghoulish fun. However, once it turns a corner, the film delivers supernatural chaos with full-bore energy right up to its barnstorming finale. It’s a climax that only Burton could whip up into such a feel-good frenzy, set in a world that feels timeless but cutting-edge, and every frame could be a macabre work of art.

Whimsically weird and occasionally bursting at the seams with ideas, the core charm of this sequel is found in its ability to balance our reverence for the past and its new ideas for the future.  It hits the right notes and has brought back a cast ready to go the distance, with the fun resurrected quite nicely.  There’s still plenty of life left in these bones, and if Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is as big of a hit as tracking indicates it will be, I wouldn’t expect audiences to wait as long for a third visit with the ghost with the most.