By George & Josh Bate
If there’s a film that so perfectly captures the singular aesthetic and tone of a Tim Burton movie, it’s Beetlejuice. The 1988 horror comedy not only made a name out of Tim Burton, but it gave rise to a distinct language of filmmaking characterized as moody, gothic, quirky, and quintessentially Burton. After successes like Batman, Edward Scissorhands, and Sleepy Hollow added prestige to that one-of-a-kind Burton flavor of filmmaking, the director hit a relative rough patch though. The likes of Dumbo and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children retained elements of Burton’s trademark style, although they lacked the magic that made Burton’s works of the past so resonant. With recent success on the small screen with Wednesday, things have been looking up for Burton however as he returns to the world that made him a notable director in the first place. The long-awaited sequel to Beetlejuice, which has been in development in one way or another for over 30 years, is finally here and seemingly all of the ingredients are in place for another dark and perplexingly cozy venture into the mind of Tim Burton.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice picks up 36 years after the events of the original film. In the wake of the unexpected death of Charles Deetz, the Deetz family return to Winter River as Lydia Deetz (played by Winona Ryder) struggles to parent her teen daughter Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega). Meanwhile, Betelgeuise (played by Michael Keaton) finds himself in the crosshairs of his ex-wife Delores (played by Monica Bellucci), who seeks revenge against him after he poisoned her centuries ago during the Black Plague.
This synopsis of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice implies a fairly streamlined narrative for this sequel, but that is not really the case. Burton’s film features a myriad of plot threads and characters and unfolds as a far more expansive narrative than the original. At the heart of the story are three generations of the Deetz family. Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz has grown up and is now the host of the television series Ghost House with Lydia Deetz. She is the mother of Jenna Ortega’s Astrid Deetz, a clever teen struggling with the loss of her father and resentment toward her mother. Delia Deetz, the family matriarch played by Catherine O’Hara, meanwhile, puts her career as an artist on pause as she mourns the loss of her husband Charles. That’s not all to this story though. Lydia is in a relationship with her television show producer Rory (played by Justin Theroux), whose motives are suspicious to say the least. Then there’s Jeremy (played by House of the Dragon’s Arthur Conti), a teenage boy in Winter River who Astrid falls for. In the afterlife, they’re all joined by Willem Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson, a former B-movie action star turned ghost detective. The aforementioned Monica Bellucci joins the fray as Betelgeuse’s vengeance-filled ex-wife. And, of course, there’s the titular character himself Beetlejuice, who plays a far more central role in this sequel.
With so many characters and plots at play, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have easily become unwieldy and overstuffed, although this is perplexingly and delightfully never the case. The various moving parts sync together with surprising ease and afford the film an organically brisk pace. In some ways, given the variety of characters and plot threads, the film feels like several episodes of a television series squished together, which sounds far more damning than what Burton’s sequel ends up being. Not every element of the film warrants inclusion, with Monica Bellucci’s villainous character and subplot in particular feeling unnecessary to the point that they could be removed with little-to-no consequence for the final product. But even then, no single part of narrative drags the film down as Burton ensures that the film never lets up and never becomes convoluted.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice represents the latest in the long line of recent legacy sequels that have spawned since Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in 2015. Such legacy sequels tend to be made and take place several decades after their predecessors and feature a mix of established and new characters to tell a story that, despite running the risk of being too similar to their original film, end up winning audiences over with nostalgia and craft. The likes of Scream (2022) and Ghostbusters: Afterlife have successfully employed this formula, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice follows suit.
Burton’s film manages to strike the perfect balance between introducing new characters and adding new dimensions to established ones. And each of the new additions fit so seamlessly into the world Burton created in 1988. Jenna Ortega is perfectly cast as the next generation of the Deetz family and delivers a performance that adopts elements of Winona Ryder’s Lydia while still feeling like a unique character. Justin Theroux fully embraces the over-the-top villainy of Lydia’s boyfriend, bringing some of that unhinged antagonist energy he exhibited in Your Highness. Willem Dafoe, meanwhile, is hilarious every moment he is on the screen as he fully commits to the role of a B-movie action star turned detective in the afterlife. It is a testament to Burton’s directing and the strong script from Alfred Gough and Miles Millar that these new additions never overshadow legacy characters and, instead, nicely complement them while feeling like natural inclusions to the world of Beetlejuice.
While becoming invested in new characters like Ortega’s Lydia or Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ensures that it never leaves its titular character or the Deetz family behind. In contrast to Keaton’s relatively small role in the original film (he only has 17 minutes of screen time), Betelgeuise features far more prominently here. This decision is genius as it positions Keaton’s iconic character more front-and-center than ever and gives him an abundance of opportunities to show off different facets of the bio-exorcist’s disturbing quirkiness. Keaton’s performance in the sequel feels like it was produced just after the original movie, such is how much this character feels like a natural continuation of the one introduced in 1988. Keaton has so much fun with a slew of strange lines and visual gags that, even if everything else in the movie doesn’t work for you, makes the film worth the price of admission nonetheless.
Winona Ryder also returns here as the grown up Lydia. The former Goth teen has clearly evolved as she has matured, had a child, and hosts a television show, but Ryder never loses sight of what made the character of Lydia so gripping in the first place. In a manner not dissimilar from Harrison Ford’s Han Solo in The Force Awakens, this iteration of Lydia intelligently embraces what the years aging have done to the character, rather than ignore the inevitable effects of the passage of time.
The same can be said for Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz, who delivers some of the film’s most humorous lines. O’Hara is simply superb in everything she is in, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is no exception. Delia becomes a far more developed and likable character in this sequel, and this is down to O’Hara achieving a perfect blend of strange and endearing (much like the film itself).
Other aspects of the film’s handling of legacy characters fall short, however. The Maitlands (the ghost couple in the first film played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are nowhere to be seen in this sequel and are relegated to a single mention, which Ortega’s Astrid character describes as “convenient” (at least the filmmakers are acknowledging to the audience that the explanation to write-off the Maitlands leaves a bit to be desired). The same can be said for Charles Deetz, whose death kicks off the plot in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The role of the character played by Jeffrey Jones in the original film is strange, but not in an intentional, Beetlejuice sort of way. Tighter writing would have allowed Charles Deetz and the Maitlands a more seamless exit from the proceedings, although their odd inclusion and exclusion respectively don’t drag the film down in any substantive way.
As a sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may not offer the sheer novelty and shock value of the original, but, frankly, few films do. The first film was crude and disturbing at times, and the second film does well to not tame those sensibilities down with a number of humorously spine-tingling visuals. The movie goes to some unusual places (an animated plane crash sequence and two scenes fitting for an Alien movie standout as particularly quirky and oddball and just the flavor of weird you’d want out of a Beetlejuice movie). Above all else, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is imbued with and evokes the spirit of the original, which, coupled with the clever decision to set the film on Halloween and embrace the aesthetic of spooky season, make it a delight to watch.
VERDICT: 8/10
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice marks a rousing return to form for acclaimed director Tim Burton. The sequel successfully juggles a multitude of plot threads and characters that could easily have become unwieldy and overwhelming. Some of these moving pieces are new characters, who seamlessly fit into the world Burton created over 30 years, including Jenna Ortega and her perfect balance between elements of Winona Ryder’s performance as Lydia and unique character dimensions of her own. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara are simply superb as the returning trio from the original film, with Keaton in particular standing out as a far more central character this time around. Poor handling of several elements carrying over from the first film and the unnecessary inclusion of a subplot involving Monica Bellucci’s villainous character only slightly detract from what is otherwise a relentlessly entertaining, fast-paced adventure ride through the afterlife that expertly taps into what made the original film so special. Not only is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the best movie Burton has made in over 10 years, but it also somehow surpasses the brilliance of the original Beetlejuice. Burton returns with a total triumph.