“Say his name three times,” we were told all those years ago, and now, thirty-six years later, the ghost with the most is back. Whether or not anyone’s been clamoring for a Beetlejuice sequel is beside the point; Tim Burton and company have resurrected their iconic, morally ambiguous specter for another round of absurd afterlife antics. But what does a sequel to a beloved cult classic look like in the year 2024? It’s a tricky thing to pin down, this “legacy sequel” phenomenon, where filmmakers often walk a tightrope between delivering something familiar for fans and creating a new, cohesive narrative. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice falls somewhere in between: it tiptoes in nostalgia, showers us in gooey, gory visual delights, and invites us back into Burton’s whimsical yet dark world. But it never quite captures the chaotic, unspeakable brilliance of the original.
First, the good: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does look absolutely stunning. For all the criticisms of Burton’s recent decline, there’s no denying that the man knows how to create a visually arresting film. The sequel is a throwback to the tactile pleasures of practical effects, with grotesque, yellow-tinged pus, squelchy blood, and garish green slime that practically ooze off the screen. The claymation-style animations, so beloved in Burton’s earlier works like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice, return in full force here, filling the screen with dark, whimsical grotesquery. For a moment, it feels like we’re back in the halcyon days of Burton’s filmmaking, when imagination and macabre fun ruled the day. The performances, too, are as sprightly as the visuals. Michael Keaton, of course, remains the magnetic, vile, and hilarious force of nature that he was in 1988. His Beetlejuice is still the same irreverent, perverted specter we remember, ogling women with the same sleazy enthusiasm, cracking wise, and conjuring up monstrous surprises for his unfortunate guests. Keaton delivers each line with manic energy, weaving his absurdity through the seams of the plot like the very living embodiment of chaos. Catherine O’Hara, reprising her role as the delightfully deranged Delia Deetz, is still pitch-perfect, her manic energy now channeled into the success of her career as a self-obsessed, avant-garde artist. O’Hara’s scenes are among the film’s highlights, serving as a reminder of just how well she inhabited the original film’s off-kilter, outsider characters.
But for all the visual pleasures and the moments of familiar absurdity, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice falls short when it comes to its narrative ambitions. Herein lies the film’s fundamental flaw: the story feels strained, as though it’s trying to juggle too many ideas and characters that ultimately never come to fruition. Burton and writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, known for their work on Smallville and Wednesday, seem more interested in delivering spectacle than developing a cohesive plot. Characters are introduced; Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Justin Theroux, Jenna Ortega; but are given scant screen time and contribute little to the overall narrative. This is a frequent pitfall for Burton in recent years: a tendency to fill his films with star power and subplots that don’t quite resonate. These characters, intriguing on paper, are relegated to mere window dressing, their arcs unexplored and ultimately wasted. The focus, such as it is, lands on Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), now a successful yet emotionally hollow TV personality who communicates with the dead, and her strained relationship with her stepmother Delia. But the film fails to give these characters the emotional depth and continuity we might hope for after all these years. Lydia, once the goth teenage rebel, is now a woman ruled by a slimy, manipulative boyfriend (Theroux), a far cry from the confident, cool character we remember. Ryder plays her with a certain sadness, but the story never digs deep enough into her arc to make it feel earned. There’s no payoff to her relationship with Beetlejuice, and in the end, her storyline feels largely disconnected from the larger narrative.
The film’s other major misstep is its treatment of Beetlejuice himself. Despite being the film’s namesake, Michael Keaton’s presence is shockingly limited. He’s a peripheral figure in his own sequel, sidelined by the introduction of new characters and plot threads that never quite cohere. Beetlejuice has his moments, but the film does little to elevate his role to the central, anarchic force that drove the original. When he finally reappears in all his chaotic glory, it’s almost too little, too late. The film’s reliance on a convoluted set of subplots, including an attempt at a backstory for Beetlejuice’s relationship with a new villain, Delores (Bellucci), only serves to muddle the core narrative. The film has so much going on that Beetlejuice, in the end, feels like a footnote. And then there’s the film’s final hurdle: the music. Burton’s Beetlejuice was famously defined by its quirky, brilliant use of Harry Belafonte’s Day-O and Jump in the Line, but the sequel tries and fails to capture that same magic. A series of strange, whimsical musical numbers, designed to evoke Burton’s idiosyncratic sensibilities, only fall flat. The new songs, despite being bizarre in the best Burton tradition, never achieve the infectious energy or cultural impact of the original’s score.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is undeniably fun, with enough laugh-out-loud moments and visual delights to satisfy long-time fans. The nods to the original film’s greatest hits are charming, and it’s hard not to smile at the return of O’Hara and Keaton, who still exude an undeniable chemistry. But despite all the goo and the gags, the sequel never quite lives up to the anarchic brilliance of the 1988 original. The film’s overstuffed narrative and sidelining of its titular character undercut its potential. For all the visual flair and nostalgic appeal, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice can’t escape the shadow of its predecessor, and sadly, it never even tries to. In the end, it’s a sequel that winks at fans and checks all the boxes without ever capturing the wild, free-spirited madness that made the first film a cultural touchstone. If anything, it leaves us wondering if Burton’s true legacy might be better left untouched; left, perhaps, to rest in the great, unblinking eye of purgatory.