Armed with wildly macabre humor and a bevy of creativity, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a triumphant return to the wacky afterlife shenanigans of the 1988 original. With Tim Burton in the director’s chair, the filmmaker assures that his beloved characters are handled with care. This one doesn’t coast on nostalgia, it expands on it with a desire to entertain that is as strong as its mission to respect fans of the 80s classic. 

One of cinema’s most original talents, it has been some time since Tim Burton has been at the top of his powers. 2016’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children certainly seemed the type of film made for his unique vision, but the final product turned out flat and uninteresting. With 2019’s Dumbo, the whole project felt stilted; the sluggish presentation proving that Burton was merely going through the motions in a project he didn’t curate. The director has been quoted as saying how his heart wasn’t in it. A singular artist with such a distinctive cinematic vision needs to be able to let his freak flag fly. Returning to the bizarre world of the “ghost with the most” 36 years later, that flag flies high. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is something quite rare for today’s Hollywood; a big budget comedy sequel to a beloved classic that is actually funny, inventive, and highly entertaining. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s screenplay is full of witty dialogue and fun ideas. Their work pays both homage and respect to the world and characters director Burton and writers Warren Skaaren, Michael McDowell, and Larry Wilson created in the first film. 

Michael Keaton makes a triumphant return as Betelgeuse. The actor hasn’t lost a step in portraying the demonic, motor-mouthed, maker of mischief. Flawlessly fitting into the literal and figurative suit of the character reminds audiences that he is one of the funniest comic actors of his time. Keaton hasn’t been this engagingly funny since he first played the role all those years ago. 

Betelgeuse now oversees an office in the underworld that fields calls from the undead. He still misses the one that got away, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder, making good on the career resurgence that began with Stranger Things). Far from the teenage goth-with-an-attitude, Lydia is now a TV psychic with her own show, produced by her manipulative, self-serving boyfriend (a very funny Justin Theroux). Lydia has her own teen daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, born for the world of Tim Burton), who fails to believe that her mom can communicate with ghosts, labeling her a fraud. The young girl’s father (Santiago Cabrera) is deceased. Lydia’s stepmom, Delia (the national treasure that is Catherine O’Hara), is still the outlandishly narcissistic artist who now does ridiculous immersive art pieces that are a good source of laughs. Time hasn’t changed Delia and her relationship with Lydia is still icy. 

Everyone is brought together after Lydia’s dad, Charles, is killed. It would have been great to see Jeffrey Jones returning as well, but the actor’s legal troubles kept him out of the story and all but banished from Hollywood. Burton finds creative ways to keep the character relevant and peppers the film with Jones’s picture in what is (perhaps) a middle finger to the studio. 

The script becomes admittedly overcrowded as the Deetz clan returns to the house where Betelgeuse was first introduced; the absence of the characters played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis is efficiently explained away. While there, Astrid meets a fellow teen (Arthur Conti) who seems to be on her wavelength and who peaks her romantic interest. Delia plans to sell the house Charles designed for her while Betelgeuse tries to stay one step ahead of his undead ex-wife (Monica Bellucci). Willem Dafoe is a former actor who is now an afterlife detective, as that’s what he once played in life. While the Bellucci story is undercooked, the picture weaves the narrative threads quite nicely. The fantastic cast and consistently inventive ideas smooth out the few bumps that exist.

The eccentric visual comedy of the original is fully intact, as Burton refuses to drown his creations in CGI. Guts ooze, body parts are severed (and come back together), and the inhabitants of the Afterlife come “alive” thanks to terrific practical effects and stop-motion animation. As he did in the first Beetlejuice, the director flawlessly combines zany comedy with the cartoonishly gruesome. The film’s greatest stylistic strength is how it expands on the world of the Afterlife. We happily return to the beloved waiting room that is now filled with even more outlandishly decaying souls waiting for their chance to move on. There is a creepy janitor (an entertaining cameo by an actor who shall not be named), an undead police squad, an office full of shrunken-head pencil-pushers, and a fun “Soul Train” station (that transports the dead to their final destination) full of 70s-style dancers and funky music. The imagination put into this film is a pleasure to see. 

As the film moves from one fun moment to the next, the standout is sure to be a breathtaking musical wedding sequence; a callback to the “Day-O” musical number in the first picture. Raising the stakes on that famous scene, Burton becomes a mad scientist of this strange world, upping the macabrely intoxicating ante as he brings to life a marvelously designed and choreographed comedic opera where a ghost orchestra plays as Betelgeus and Lydia dance in the air. All the while, the cast is possessed by Richard Harris’s hit song, “MacArthur Park”. 

Once composer Danny Elfman’s bouncy, original, Nino Rota-inspired theme begins as the opening credits roll, Burton promises (and delivers) a gift to his fans that will be respectful, infectious, fun. With its ghoulish madness, great cast, and scenes of absolute hilarity, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is one of the funniest comedies in years and one of the best legacy sequels ever made. It’s a blast!

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar

Directed by Tim Burton

Starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’ Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe

PG-13, 104 Minutes, Warner Brothers Pictures, Plan B Entertainment, The Geffen Company Tim Burton Productions