Warning: This review contains spoilers.
How long has it been since Tim Burton was almost unanimously regarded as one of America’s great auteurs? Actually, here’s a different question: how long has it been since Burton directed a “great” movie? It feels like an eternity ago, doesn’t it? Since “Corpse Bride” (2005), perhaps the last great Burton film, the master of the whimsical who championed the strange, the ugly and the offbeat ditched his hyper-unique audiovisual sensibilities in favor of something almost offensively bland and soulless.
So, here comes “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”: Burton’s last-ditch attempt at recapturing his old magic by turning his magnum opus into commercial intellectual property. And while the final product makes for a technically competent follow-up — a semi-return-to-form — I struggle to find genuine artistic justifications for its existence.
Set approximately three decades after the original “Beetlejuice” (1988), the sequel retains most of its titular ensemble and then some; Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz and her strained relationship with her estranged daughter, Jenna Ortega’s Astrid, is placed at the narrative’s forefront. Burton weaves in some clever, gruesome and downright absurd solutions to explain the absence of certain characters, particularly Jeffrey Jones’ Charles, to deliver a taste of karmic justice to the actor’s repulsive off-screen actions.
Therein lies the film’s first, most straightforward problem: overabundance. Like many legacy sequels — with Gil Kenan’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” (2023) arguably being this film trend’s most egregious offender — there’s a bizarre notion amongst studios, directors and producers that sequels must strive for something bigger; this idea generally comes at the expense of a balanced, fleshed-out plot. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is no exception, adding a half dozen new, underdeveloped characters to its ensemble, with their stories compacted into a somewhat minuscule 105-minute runtime.
What makes this phenomenon particularly frustrating is how frequently the movie fails to create proper build-ups and pay-offs to its subplots just after they pique your interest. Take Astrid’s deceptive romance with local boy Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti, or Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse running away from his vengeful ex-lover, Delores, played by Monica Bellucci. In a vacuum, these are solid concepts that tinker with Burton’s signature of twistedly whimsical storytelling. But because they function as minor detours to the central narrative, barely any screen time is dedicated to dilating these subplots. On several occasions, the movie practically says, “Hey, remember this thing that we brought up 30 minutes ago that you probably forgot about?” and then proceeds to resolve these auxiliary plots too tidily.
That said, credit must be given to Burton for miraculously recapturing the audiovisual magic that made the original “Beetlejuice” so special. Juxtaposed with the digital sheen and supposed normalcy of the living world, seeing the afterlife filled to the brim with practical sets and eye-catching colors made for a wondrous experience. And even if Burton’s cartoonish sensibilities have been innumerably replicated through the decades — like a victim to its success — very few directors capture young Burton’s hyper-unique flair, which he rekindles here.
To its dissenters, it’s easy to criticize “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” for retreading its predecessor’s avant-garde — whether it’s the sporadic moments of bodily horror that masquerade within a kids’ movie, stop-motion sets or gothic German expressionism; but amidst the fan service, several original, unique ideas manage to bleed through. Delores’ introductory scene, where we see her sucking other characters’ souls and stapling herself back together, is an immediate standout, with the remainder of the movie not shying away from the more gruesome aspects of bodily reconstruction.
Add to all of this 73-year-old Keaton and his rendition of Betelgeuse, whose ability to delicately tread the balance between subtlety and overtness in his mannerisms despite nearly 40 years of separation from the role led to Burton’s best film in over a decade. Granted, that’s a low bar, but I’ll take what I can get.
