Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a pretty substantial sequel. It’s fun, and goodness knows we need more of that nowadays. It’s also cringe-y, but we’ll get to that.
Lydia now hosts a paranormal talk show where she discusses the results of investigations she’s done, usually involving her looking wild-eyed into the infrared camera. She’s a widow, and her daughter, Astrid, is off at boarding school. Her mother, Delia, has an art gallery in downtown Manhattan. Lydia’s producer, Rory, is also her boyfriend.
When Lydia’s dad dies from being eaten by a shark, Lydia, Astrid, and Delia go back to the old homestead, which hasn’t changed all that much, although the decor has improved since the last movie. The miniature town is still upstairs in the attic, though.
After the funeral, Lydia, Astrid, and Delia stay on to clear things out. Plus, Astrid’s met this guy and she’s going to spend Halloween with him. Only problem is, he’s actually the ghost of a guy who died after murdering his parents and he tricks Astrid into opening up the afterlife for him. Naturally, Lydia has to go in and get her out, but there’s a catch, of course, and it involves our favorite gross-out ghoul, Beetlejuice.
Our antihero seems to have reformed a little bit, but it’s more self-serving than sincere. He really wants to marry Lydia.
Oh, and then there’s the matter of Juice’s first wife returning from the dead and putting herself together with a staple gun. She misses Juice and wants him back. She’s also good at sucking out souls.
Zoikes, Beetlejuice 2 is nutty. Plotwise, it’s fairly focused, but in other ways it’s all over the place, probably because there are so many side characters and off-kilter settings. It’s almost overwhelming, as if Burton wanted to stick in as many of his trademark elements as possible. The problem is there aren’t enough normal characters to ground the weirdness, like Peg in Edward Scissorhands or Mr. and Mrs. Bucket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Beetlejuice 2 has shades of Orpheus In the Underworld, since most of it takes place in the afterlife, and it goes crazy with the colorful and macabre. Lydia’s sainted husband, for instance, apparently died at sea, and since he’s fish food, he literally has wiggling fish parts sticking out all over him, which makes any hugging extra squishy. Lydia and Astrid don’t seem to mind too much, though.
It’s also slightly annoying. There’s some extremely weird animation towards the beginning that I won’t spoil, and remember the “Banana Boat” dance scene in the original movie? Well, Juice gets everyone dancing again, only it’s to “MacArthur Park.” It. Never. Ends.
Don’t get me wrong, Beetlejuice is a fun movie. It’s refreshingly free of politics, and it’s nice having a good solid Burton film back in theaters. Casting Jenna Ortega as Astrid was genius because she and Winona Ryder are believable as mother and daughter. Rory is excess baggage. Catherine O’Hara and Willem Dafoe get to chew some scenery, well, it’s more like chew or be chewed, as the case may be.
However, I can’t help feeling when all is said and done that the sequel feels as if it’s trying a little too hard and the original is better.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: B-
Principal Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Belucci, Arthur Conti, Nick Kellington, Santiago Cabrera, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito, Sami Slimane, Amy Nuttall, Mark Heenehan, Charlie Hopkinson, Liv Spencer, Skylar Park
Directed by Tim Burton.
Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Graham Smith.