‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Review: You Won’t Say It a Third Time

‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' (2024)

Many may look at Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to the 1988 cult comedy-horror classic Beetlejuice, and see a Hollywood get-rich-quick scheme that has plagued cinemas for years. You step back, scratch your head, and wonder why Warner Bros. didn’t make a sequel sooner.

The truth is, the studio wanted to capitalize on the newly minted pop culture icon. While an animated show kept the legacy alive, the sequel was stuck in development hell. A few ideas floated around, like a ‘60s surfer homage with demons (that script was dubbed Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian), but lightning rarely strikes twice.

Beetlejuice is an oddly specific movie. Nothing like it existed before or after its debut, and it’s not a style, story, or vibe that can be easily replicated by a director who has lost his auteur touch over the last decade or two, or by an aging or sidelined cast. While Jenna Ortega’s Astrid, the teenage daughter of Lydia (Winona Ryder), and Catherine O'Hara’s eccentric Delia Deetz breathe new life into the legacy sequel with their unique sense of strangeness—grounding the film in a world slightly off-kilter, just as Ryder and Burton did in the first film—the rest of the movie struggles to hit the high note that could carry it into the halls of cinematic history.

Screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar take on the bio-exorcist nearly 36 years later, catching audiences up to the modern lives of the Deetzes—Lydia, still seeing ghosts, now hosts a supernatural talk show with her producer boyfriend; Delia continues making art; and Astrid refuses to talk to her mother because she can’t see her dead husband. Charles, played by Jeffrey Jones in the first film but absent here due to his troubled past, brings the women together after he dies by getting strategically bitten in half by a shark following a plane crash. With the gang back together in Winter River, Connecticut, the stage is set for high jinks.

But it takes a while for things to kick off.

In the original film, Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) doesn’t appear until halfway through, yet he is arguably the best part. Without Betelgeuse, what’s driving the plot? While Beetlejuice screenwriters Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren crafted a story that forced the recently deceased couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) to turn to Betelgeuse as a last resort, Gough and Millar struggle to justify his return.

The film's main flaw is that it suffers from too many plots. From Betelgeuse’s ex-wife Delores (played by Burton’s current muse Monica Bellucci) reappearing, to Astrid getting caught in a ghost plot while reuniting with her dead father Richard (Santiago Cabrera), to Lydia getting married, to Delia creating mourning art, to a ghost movie star-turned-detective (Willem Dafoe) trying to arrest Delores, there are so many characters and subplots to keep up with. But beneath the clutter, there is a great movie.

The relationship between Astrid and Lydia is the film's strongest thread, grounding the absurdity of the Deetz family in a way similar to how the Maitlands did in the first movie. Lydia leans fully into the strange, while Astrid pulls away—one foot in normalcy, the other in her family’s kookiness. It’s unclear whether Astrid believes her mother can see ghosts, but she cannot forgive Lydia for failing to see her late father, an eco-warrior who died during a protest. As Astrid is about to board the Soul Train—a groovy subway to the afterlife—Lydia and her dead husband, working near the booth where Astrid’s soul was taken, save her from damnation. The family reunites, and Richard urges the two to get along, resolving their conflict.

Whether Gough, Millar, and Burton knew this was the story’s heart is unclear. They wrap it up quickly instead of exploring how the franchise’s big bad could exploit it for his own gain. Instead, Lydia wields power over Betelgeuse, making him act more like a tamed cat than the feral demon he’s meant to be. Characters are underutilized, placed in scenes simply to move the story forward, and uninspired. They drift from place to place, hoping to find something to do.

Betelgeuse and Lydia, the legacy characters, suffer the most. They appear in costumes of their former selves, looking as they did 30 years ago, but the clothes don’t fit the same, the wrinkles are deeper, and their hold on who these characters once were has slipped. This isn’t necessarily bad—O’Hara also dons a costume of her past self but takes herself seriously. Ryder, however, struggles to revive the goth girl who once delighted in annoying everyone. She’s meek and fearful of Betelgeuse, while Betelgeuse seems more afraid of her.

The film fails its characters in nearly every way. While there’s a reason for them to return to the sleepy town far from the city, the story doesn’t care whether they grow. Unfortunately, Astrid is the only character with a complete arc, and she isn’t on screen much.

The film has plenty of needle drops, another demon-led sing-along—even if it drags on (tip: if the full song plays, the scene is too long)—and Burton’s trademark mise-en-scène flourishes with CGI/practical effects. He even pays homage to German Expressionist silent films in Betelgeuse’s backstory and Mario Bava’s giallos. The film is visually rich, something missing from Burton’s recent work, but his style can’t disguise the lack of substance.

You can feel the film’s uneven footing, the lag in thrills and chills that made the first movie a spooky hit. There was something childlike about the way death was presented as mundane in the original. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice struggles to find that same balance, relying on nostalgia from the first film to keep audiences engaged.

‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' (2024)

Legacy sequels have their place in cinema. They don’t spell doom, but they should be approached with curiosity: What wasn’t said in the first film? Why return? Why now? If the answer is money, the film won’t have legs. Everything starts with story and ends with a marriage of heightened emotions and nostalgia. When a movie is bloated with plot, it’s easy to sneer. But that’s not what makes Beetlejuice Beetlejuice an ultimately disappointing thrill ride.

Cheap thrills will only get you so far. When Burton steps up to the plate, he can keep swinging and missing, yet the crowd still cheers for him. He’s a bankable director, but that’s not why audiences love him.

Burton lost his auteur touch when he turned to the studio system, but you can feel him struggling to rediscover his vision while balancing a story that 30 other people want to tell. It’s admirable, especially for a director who leans heavily on visual distortions and hyper-expressive styles, but he’s no longer the artist who made Beetlejuice. So, who is Burton now?