When BEETLEJUICE hit theaters in 1988, it started a working relationship between director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton that led to multiple film collaborations, including two very successful BATMAN movies. In the time since, both men have been asked repeatedly if they’d ever revisit the character that brought them together, and now that day has come. The ever-so-appropriately titled BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE brings back most of the original cast including Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, and peppers in some new faces like Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Justin Theroux and the very popular Jenna Ortega. Keaton is back in the title role, but as in the first movie is used fairly sparingly here… which delivers mixed results in a mostly entertaining sequel.

Lydia Deetz (Ryder) is all grown up now, and has turned her suspicious ability to see ghosts into a successful career as a talk show host helping people with hauntings, while her producer boyfriend Rory (Theroux) pushes her to keep up the new career. She has a daughter named Astrid (Ortega) who wants little to do with her mom since the loss of her father, who for some reason Lydia doesn’t see in his afterlife form. When Lydia starts seeing visions of Beetlejuice (Keaton) randomly in her daily life, she begins to fear something bad is looming. She is reunited with her mother Delia Deetz (O’Hara) when her father dies suddenly, bringing the Deetz family back together in the town where the old house from the past still lingers. While in town, Astrid meets a boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who has interests similar to hers, and they form a fast connection. In the afterlife, Beetlejuice becomes targeted by his ex-lover Delores (Bellucci), who returns from a gruesome death to seek him out, sucking the souls out of anyone who gets in her way. An afterlife detective named Wolf Jackson (Dafoe) becomes obsessed with finding Delores before she finishes her mission. While at first Lydia tries to hide her past with Beetlejuice from Astrid, she eventually finds herself in need of his help, no matter the cost and complicated history they share.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE is a fun and amusing sequel that delivers a lot of satisfaction for fans of the original, but it’s mixed together with a somewhat convoluted plot and one or two unnecessary extra characters. Winona Ryder as Lydia is a welcome return presence here, but her shocked reactionary shtick gets a little tired after a while, and she also looks more confused than confident as the messy plot unfolds… perhaps with good reason. Catherine O’Hara seems to be playing things more safely as Delia, now a prominent New York modern artist who seems bored by her present activities and rather lost after the shocking and unexpected death of her husband. Jenna Ortega takes center stage for a good portion of the film, though her story at first feels really disconnected from the rest, and her scenes are even shot in a very traditional way – there are entire portions of the film that look like anyone other than Tim Burton directed them, and it’s perhaps intentional to give her side of the story a more modern and specific feel, but for me just made it seem a tad disjointed. Justin Theroux seems to be having fun hamming it up as the opportunistic Rory, a character who has a story arc you can almost predict from the first moment he’s introduced. While I love both Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci, the actors are kind of misplaced here, and ultimately don’t do much to serve or advance the story, to the point where they could have been left out entirely and it wouldn’t have really hurt the plot. Arthur Conti is interesting as Astrid’s love interest, but his story is wrapped up rather abruptly, almost as if the writers weren’t sure how best to resolve his arc. Danny Devito has a short cameo early on, but also (sadly) isn’t given much to do.

But let’s face it, you came to see Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice again, and for the most part he delivers and slips back into the role rather effortlessly. His age definitely shows a bit here, but he’s got the voice and mannerisms down well enough to make it feel flawlessly familiar. There are moments involving the character that are so well done it almost feels like you’re watching footage from the original. The one aspect I was a little let down by was Beetlejuice not being just a bit cautious considering how he was bested previously by the same characters… he’s a little too confident and trusting this time around, though some of it is to serve the script and get us to the finale without overstaying its welcome. The character also effectively pokes fun at more modern tropes, including social media influencers and corporate hierarchy… Beetlejuice has evolved with the times, and cleverly so.

Tim Burton’s style is a bit erratic this time out, with certain sections of the film looking like they spilled right out of his head, while other sections strangely feeling very aesthetically ordinary in appearance. There was a time when a Tim Burton movie looked like Burton all the way through, but here the look and feel is more disconnected depending on the events taking place on screen. Thankfully he brought back the great Danny Elfman to provide the film’s score, which is familiar yet evolved, and really serves the sometimes manic and macabre events of the script.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE is a sequel that does its best to make fans of the original happy, which also trying to hook a younger crowd. The comedy elements work pretty well, even if they don’t land quite as strong as they did in the original. This is a darker and more disturbing take on the material too, sometimes really pushing the boundaries of the PG-13 rating to surprising lengths. While not as good or even as cohesive as the original film, this is a mostly fun follow up that should satisfy most… that is if you don’t overthink its sometimes messy plot. At one hour and 44 minutes, it’s a fairly amusing distraction in a day of overlong and over-packed movies that typically leave you cold. While I can’t necessarily say I loved it, it was entertaining to revisit these characters after all these years, and perhaps most importantly, everyone on screen looks like they’re having a blast.

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