In 1988, director Tim Burton and Michael Keaton teamed up for the supernatural comedy Beetlejuice. For years and years and years, rumors of a sequel have been popping up, but now we finally have the freaky follow-up.
I’m pleased to report that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a second chapter well worth the wait. Just like its predecessor, it makes no assumptions other than to provide its fan base with more of what they got in the original, as well as introducing enough ingredients to make this a satisfying effort.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice picks up thirty years later with Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz, now a successful TV host of a show called “Ghost House.” Justin Theroux is her boyfriend/producer, Rory.
Lydia gets some tragic news from her stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), about the death of her father, Charles (Jeffery Jones), after he’s killed in a shark attack in a bizarre stop-motion animated sequence.
Lydia goes home for the funeral with her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who thinks her mom is a fake and is still mourning the death of her own father. Astrid also meets a boy, and they begin to take a liking to each other.
Astrid discovers a portal into the Afterlife and Lydia has no choice but to summon Keaton’s Beetlejuice to help her out. It’s here that the movie kicks into the madcap energy that dominated the first movie, and this sequel does pretty much the same.
When we get to the Afterlife, we meet a series of creepy characters, including Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a supernatural detective who was an actor before death. Monica Bellucci plays Delores, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, who is on the hunt for him and can suck the souls out of the dead.
The only characters not returning for this one are Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis’ Adam and Barbara Maitland, respectively. According to the script, they found a loophole and moved on. Their presences are missed and might have made the story more intriguing.
Like the original, Burton knows how to recreate what worked so wonderfully well in the original and applies the same techniques here: unique set designs, practical effects such as puppets, and the aforementioned stop-motion animation instead of an overabundance of cheesy CGI. He’s clearly in his element, and he’s clearly having a blast.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees Burton getting his Gothic mojo back and at the age of 73, Keaton still has the same manic, outlandish qualities that made the character so iconic. It’s actually their strength that they don’t aspire to make anything other than a movie that hardcore fans who have been clamoring for this sequel have been wanting to see for years. To that end, this is mission accomplished.
The finale goes a little overboard with its characters, and the plot and humor stumble occasionally, but what makes this movie work is that it’s entertaining enough and the visual elements are a sight to behold.
Will we get Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? Who knows? For now, it’s good to see that the Juice is loose once again.
Grade: B+
(Rated PG-13 for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language, some suggestive material and brief drug use.)
This review is dedicated to the memories of Claudine Chesser and Matthew Heald.
