BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE

34 years after he originally graced our cinema screens Michael Keatons underworld incubus returns

And I had a lot of fun with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. In all honesty I had more fun with this one that I did with the first.

But my god was it a mess.

We start with the death of the original films patriarch Charles Deetz, a plot point which will be of no surprise to anyone who is aware of actor Jeffrey Jones extracurricular activities. His funeral brings Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Delia (Catherine O’Hara) - leaning heavily into her Moira Rose - back to Winter River.

Joining them for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice are new additions Jenna Ortega, as Lydia’s disenfranchised daughter Astrid and Justin Theroux’s Rory. 

In the underworld we are, naturally, reintroduced to Betelgeuse, now overseeing an office of Bio-Exocists, learns that his demonic ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) has escaped from captivity, and is looking for revenge.

We are also introduced to Willem Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson, an actor turned detective looking to recapture Delores)

There are also a number of other plot points bouncing around the place, but honestly most of them are so inconsequential I’m not going to bother going into them.

And this, ultimately, is the problem with the film. There are so many ideas, so many different strands and different characters, but absolutely none of them get a chance to breathe. Each one just ambles aimlessly towards an inevitably unsatisfying conclusion.

Te entire Delores story in particular seems so unattached to the rest of the film, I would be amazed if it had appeared in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s original draft.

It smacks of an executive telling the creative team that the film needs something else, and writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar trying - and failing - to retroactively weave a further subplot through the rest of the story. 

The whole film feels like the idea of making it came far before any semblance of plot had even been conceived. That Burton and Keaton wanted to return to it, and they thought that the characters alone would be enough to pull it through.

Which, to be fair, they almost do.

Because where Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does work is in its performances. Michael Keaton is brilliant. And is clearly having a lot of fun returning to the role. He slips effortlessly back into the grotesqueness of the character it’s like he has never been away from it.

Willem Dafoe is another having an absolute ball; chewing the scenery and leaning into every noir detective trope at his disposal. His story might not go anywhere but I enjoyed every second of him being on screen, and would happily watch a full length spin off of him investigating crimes in the afterlife. 

And Catherine O’Hara… My friend Chase made the point after watching it that her character has changed a lot since the first film. And it feels as though Burton has watched her, as I alluded to at the start of this review, as Schitt Creeks Moira Rose and simply asked her to just do that here.

And it really worked for. I’m a huge Schitts Creek fan as it is, and she is one of the best things about it, and the campness of this performance fits easily into the world of Beetlejuice.

And Beetlejuice Beetlejuice looks terrific, the use of practical effects over CGI are true to the original work, and really enhance the feel of this world. It allows them to go to some particularly dark places, while also maintaining a whimsical, light hearted tone is a testament to Tim Burtons commitment to his own unique visual style.

His best work may be behind him, but we so rarely have a director whose films can be identified immediately purely by how they look, and even if I don’t always like their films directors like Burton - and others like Wes Anderson - should be celebrated for this.

We seem to now be in the era of the legacy sequels, and this isn’t one of the worst. It is fun, it’s certainly more fun the the recent Ghostbusters entries or 2021’s Matrix Resurrections. But that is all it is. 

And there is absolutely a place for that.

But if you are looking for a film with a narrative reason to exist, a legacy sequel to do a deep dive into its characters, or take them into new, interesting, places, this is not it. 

Its story is unfocused, lightweight and of absolutely no consequence.

But I will come back to it.

It is fun being back in this world; spending time with this characters. And I imagine that was the entire pitch meeting, because Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has very little else going for it.

And so I hope they don’t make another. We have two films, and there is no need to make a third. Let these characters rest. Let them collect their ticket and take their seat in the Netherworld Waiting Room.

We have Beetlejuice Beetlejuice… please don’t invoke his name a third time.