Michael Keaton is back as the ghost with the most in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." Credit: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc
Nothing is truly dead in Hollywood. Franchises can be resurrected after decades of turnaround purgatory. Sequels can rise, even if their heroes have been slain. Even dead actors can reprise roles through the use of CGI. All of this has happened this very summer, for better for for worse -- mostly for worse.
Which is why I approached Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with a stomach-churning blend of excitement and anxiety. I grew up with this movie, and 36 years later, I can still quote most of it by heart. Michael Keaton's ghost with the most shaped my sense of humor, while Winona Ryder's and Catherine O'Hara's chic, vaguely goth sartorial explosions shaped my personal style.
More than anything, I wanted this long talked about sequel to 1988's Beetlejuice to be good. But between a summer of cinema soured by fan-service pandering and the recent string of underwhelming, underperforming Tim Burton movies, I had some profound cynicism about this sequel going in.
Sometimes it's fun to be wrong. And Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the most fun I've had being wrong in quite a while. This movie is outrageous in all the right ways, and even some of the wrong ones.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set thirty-some years after the Deetz family moved to the quiet town of Winter River, where they collided with the recently deceased Maitlands and their eponymous bio-exorcist for hire. Now, Lydia Deetz (Ryder) is a widow, whose teen daughter Astrid (Wednesday's Jenna Ortega) regards her with precisely the level of esteem and affection that she offered her stepmother Delia (O'Hara) all those years ago. (Naturally, Delia relishes pointing out this "karma.") Mother-daughter tensions aside, when Astrid winds up trapped in the land of the dead, Lydia calls on an old frenemy for help.
Through this premise, Burton is able to bring back all kinds of Beetlejuice iconography and catchphrases without much strain. (Looking at you, Alien: Romulus!) Along with Lydia's enviably sharp baby bangs, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings back stop-motion sandworms, that iconic black-and-white striped suit designed by Colleen Atwood (who has also returned!), and shrunken-head ghosties. Beyond that, Burton -- with the help of screenwriters/Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar -- expand the realm of the dead, offering up creepy and comical new characters as well as darkly hysterical gags.
Where films like Dark Shadows, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and the live-action Dumbo felt like hollow Burton entries -- channeling his aesthetic, but lacking in his subversive strangeness and feral heart -- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is alive with the best of the director's indulgences. It's not just that the movie looks like one of his sketchbooks come to vivid life. It's that the film's humor is unrepentantly oddball, treating everything from shark attacks to baby ghouls as fair game for laughs and gasps. The childlike wonder of Pee-wee's Big Adventure and the juvenile provocations of Beetlejuice are refreshed with Keaton's madcap performance, which is at full throttle every moment.
Devotees of the original movie might quibbles over some tweaks to character and plot, like a quick line of dialogue that explains the Maitlands' absence, or a revised motivation for why Beetlejuice wants to reconnect with Lydia. But Burton and his collaborators understand that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is also for fans of canon-breakers -- like the 1989 Beetlejuice cartoon series, in which the pair were buddies, and the hit Broadway show. Over the decades, Beetlejuice has become beloved, despite being an absolute heel in the original movie. And Keaton sharply threads the needle, being both wickedly charismatic and an absolute cad.
The rightfully acclaimed actor who starred in Birdman, a film about feeling trapped by one's most iconic roles, plunges back into Beetlejuice with no apparent reservation or ego. Once more, this ghastly ghoul has a pronounced beer belly, deeply sunken eyes, and rot and moss ringing his chin. He has the swagger of Elvis and the manic patter of a cartoon. But the looseness of his physical comedy? That's all Keaton. He is gloriously goofy and totally game, and it's a pleasure to see his juice unloosed once more.
O'Hara is similarly sensational as the uncompromising, egocentric artist Delia Deetz. Where she was once seen as an evil stepmother with a questionable taste for interior design, the world has caught up with Delia, embracing her passions for ghost stories, dopamine dressing, and self-obsession. This time, her eccentric artist becomes the voice of reason! Still, O'Hara and Burton find moments to revel in Delia's personal brand of audaciousness. Bless them.
Likewise, Ryder -- who's been entrenched in the dark, squelching horror of Stranger Things since 2016 -- relishes the return to Burton's brand of macabre levity. With her dark, bulging stare, it's easy to trace her path from isolated, suicidal goth teen to ghost-hunting TV star, whose daughter finds her tragically unhip. Though Lydia's arc is studded with loss, Ryder and Burton keep things light by embracing the absurdity of life and death. And that's mostly a great thing.
There's a lot of plot to this sequel. Not only does Lydia return to unfinished business in her formative haunted home, but she's also got a producer/boyfriend (Justin Theroux, oozing sketch) pushing her to wed. Plus, Astrid experiences first love with a local boy (Arthur Conti), while Beetlejuice is ducking his vengeance-seeking ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) and a dead cop (Willem Dafoe), who was a blowhard B-movie actor that played a cop in his past life. All these threads are not so much woven together as they are chucked into a pile.
The upside to all this story is that audiences get to enjoy some truly unhinged subplots. Bellucci is viciously entertaining as a ferocious and sexy femme fatale, swanning around as if poison and red wine runs through her veins. Dafoe -- who is never afraid to push himself into theatricality -- is brilliant as a "bad" actor who is comically fixated on his craft more than actually solving crimes. Conti's subplot with Ortega is enchanting, bringing a swoon that recalls the chaste romance of Edward Scissorhands. Theroux's subplot, however, is predictable, veering into annoying.
Refashioned as a new spin on the first film's opportunistic Otho (Glenn Shadix), Theroux's character Rory lacks the silly yet smug self-satisfaction of Delia's old friend, using in its stead the kind of therapy-speak you can pick up on TikTok without ever comprehending its actual meaning. Sure, his character is meant to be a creep, but most of the con men, creeps, and critters of this world are fun. His is a bit too unsavory, perhaps because he feels the least heightened. Like, I imagine you could find a Rory on any dating app within a few swipes.
In the end, the screenplay of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is so jam-packed with characters, threads, and set pieces, that it feels less like a movie and more like a jumble of Post-it notes for several could-be sequels combined. This make for a climax that is as confounding as it is chaotic. Like, I'm not sure the ending actually makes any sense. But I'm also at peace with that, because logic has never been what Beetlejuice was really about.
In Beetlejuice, the land of the dead was absolutely perplexing to the living and recently deceased alike; the Handbook for the Recently Deceased was repeatedly described as reading "like stereo instructions," and nothing about the afterlife was intuitive to the Maitlands. Burton and his team use this setup as license to riff and revel without the limiting constrictions of a traditional -- or even coherent -- plotline. I admit the third act is a mess, made up of musical numbers, stunts, dream sequences, and absolutely bonkers choices. But I can't say I am bothered, because they're an absolute blast. Do you question the logic of a rollercoaster?
Ultimately, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is pure Burton, passionate, untethered, and indulgent. Fans of the original movie will have plenty of reason to cheer, and even more to cackle.
