For the last 20 years or so, the phrase “from director Tim Burton” was more warning than promise. When reading it on a movie poster, the voice in my head sounded exactly like someone who narrates a prescription drug commercial. “Do not watch if you’re allergic to pale people, crooked architecture, or Johnny Depp.” What a shock to find that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is fairly hilarious and genuinely charming.
Sure, the first 30 minutes are a bit of a chore, filling in a 30+ year gap with wholly unneeded exposition. The annoying intro sets up various subplots that have little to no payoff and, for some strange reason, only allows Justin Theroux to be funny. To be fair, he is remarkably funny, but there is a reason the movie is not titled Rory: The New Boyfriend of Winona Ryder’s Character in Beetlejuice. Once “Beetlejuice” is spoken in triplicate, things are an absolute hoot, regardless of whether the plot feels more stitched together than Frankenstein’s monster after additional, elective plastic surgery.
Lydia Deetz (Ryder) now uses her power to see ghosts as host of a schlocky talk show. After finding out her dad has died, she scoops up her estranged daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), and joins her stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), at the family estate. That would be the place still quasi-haunted by Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), who is in the title twice deservedly.
Over in the underworld, Delores (Monica Belluci) is hunting Mr. Juice, her ex-husband. She’s leaving a wake of deader dead bodies, which actor-turned-afterlife-cop, Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), is trying to stop. Meanwhile, Astrid falls for a local pale, tall teen named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), and Rory tries to convince Lydia to marry him. It’s all a lot of busywork, really. That said, it all culminates in a final 40 minutes or so of pleasingly demented, goofy-weird undead shenanigans and japery. Who on this earth, above ground or under it, doesn’t love a bit of demented, goofy-weird undead shenanigans and japery?
Keaton remains an unstoppable comedic force who can almost reach the hilarity levels that O’Hara hits for breakfast. As ever, Ryder is effortlessly endearing. Ortega is asked to hold everything together and manages to do just that. And Theroux is sneakily sidesplitting. The whole cast is spot-on, including Jeffrey Jones. He’s perfectly used, in that he doesn’t appear at all and is killed offscreen, his headless corpse flounced around as a plot point. That’s what happens when you become a registered sex offender in real life. Womp womp!
No womp womping for Burton here, as the things that once made his films watchable mostly work again here. The simple surrealness, the quaint queerness, the hinky happenings all click. The fear was that the modern cinematic need to explain everything, to provide a backstory and explanation for how and why things function in a supernatural movie, would overtake things. Nope! The Beetlejuice universe still has no rhyme or reason, and it’s all the better for it. Why are we all charmed and amused by a vulgar, sexist chaos demon? Because they belong onscreen and not in real life…
Grade = B+
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Jana J. Monji at Age of the Geek says “The juice is loose and just as lecherous as before, and this film plays with death in a way that fun and, at times, comforting.”
Wenlei Ma at The Nightly says “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is content to throw glitter and guts in the air, mix it up and see what ghastly concoctions form. It’s purely a nostalgia piece, but what more did you want?”
Hoai-Tran Bui at Inverse says “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has all the cynical pretenses of the dreaded legasequel, but thanks to its dedication to the original’s gonzo practical effects and another top-tier performance from Keaton (who looks like he never took off that electricity-fried wig and striped suit), it’s the most energized film Burton has made in over a decade.”