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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega and directed by Tim Burton
Trailer: Warner Bros.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Directed by Tim Burton
Rated PG-13
Said 6 September 2024
#Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice finds Tim Burton back in classic, quirky form.

Daaay-O

A sequel to a beloved, one-of-a-kind original is always a dicey proposition. Compound it with that original accumulating 36 years of fond memories and a growing fanbase as it’s introduced to new audiences and the challenge becomes mighty daunting.

That’s the environment in which Beetlejuice Beetlejuice finds itself and – seemingly against all odds – Tim Burton and his creative team behind the Wednesday streaming series (based on the Wednesday Addams character from The Addams Family) make it work. Surprisingly well.

The catalyst is the demise of Charles Deetz, which brings the extended Deetz family back to Winter River, Conn., and the house where so much mayhem transpired (and expired).

In a way, the action plays out a little like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Through a series of vignettes and situations, Pee-wee makes his way to the Alamo in search of his treasured bicycle. Here, Beetlejuice and the Deetzes, along with several new characters, have individual story arcs which collide in a devilish conclusion at the Deetz house, now draped in black like a large-scale art installation by the widowed Delia Deetz.

Woe Be Gone

In Beetlejuice, Charles was played by Jeffrey Jones, who is in reality very much alive and on the cusp of turning 79. But a sex scandal took him out of the limelight, dimming a stardom crafted out of making big impressions with small roles. In addition to Charles, Jones was the school principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, among other big hits in the 1980s. Jones is still working, but not here. His character is given a horrific (but humorous) demise as shown in a clever, highly stylized flashback mimicking the claymation of the original Beetlejuice.

Delia (Catherine O’Hara, Argylle) dealing with her husband’s death through grandiose artistic expressions is merely the tip of the tombstone. There’s so much more down below.

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder, Stranger Things), Charles’ goth daughter, now hosts a paranormal TV show (in front of a live studio audience), playing a riff on the pop culture phenomenon that has built up around ghost hunting – all those movies and TV series that have scoured the world in search of definitive proof ghosts exist. It’s spot-on, including the night vision cameras that cast such an eerie green glow, they can make the most mundane of settings seem overrun with demons.

But, while Lydia is obsessed with the paranormal, she is herself a widow who has no interest in trying to summon her own deceased husband, Richard (Santiago Cabrera, Big Little Lies). That is one facet in the chasm that exists between her and her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, Wednesday), even as Astrid crashes into her own love story.

And Beetlejuice himself is facing his own crisis in the afterlife, contending with a newly put-back-together ex, Delores (Monica Bellucci, Malena).

Even with all that, there’s still more going on between the worlds of the living and the dead. It’s a spider web of relationships that stitch together into a bigger picture, all the individual stories dealing with various aspects of love and life gone wrong (almost universally in one gory extreme or another, but always with a wink).

Nonetheless, it’s the relationship between Lydia and Astrid that’s the true core (and heart) of the movie. Between them (and the somewhat dearly departed husband and father), there’s a happy ending that’s to be hoped for, but life and the afterlife often make other plans.

Soul Train

Part of the fun of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is getting a broader taste of the afterlife, the creepy, dark world where Beetlejuice has established his neon shingle. He’s keeping busy, but he still pines for his true, great love, Lydia, and her little red dress. (Well, the "true, great love" of his mind and his alone.)

And this is also where Burton gets to be his playful self. Possibly the quirkiest of so many quirky moments in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a flashback to the halcyon days of Beetlejuice’s marriage to Delores. It goes many layers deep into off-the-wall oddness. Beetlejuice’s voice is dubbed in Spanish (with English subtitles). It’s black-and-white. It’s Ed Wood. It’s Frankenweenie. It’s full-tilt Burton as the backstory to Delores unfolds, before Beetlejuice’s soul-sucking wife needs to pull herself back together and winds up looking quite a bit like Victoria in Corpse Bride and Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Burton has never been everybody’s cup of tea, so it’s to his credit he stays true to himself and – rather than pandering to more modern sensibilities – keeps the creativity moving forward very much in the spirit of the original. With characters like Beetlejuice and Wednesday and their colorful worlds (regardless of how dominant the color black is), Burton’s in "the zone" and it’s quite a fun zone.

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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