Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

(Warning: Contains spoilers.)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) released September 6, 2024 is Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to the hit 1988 film. Reprising their roles are Michael Keaton as the titular Beetlejuice (sometimes also spelled “Betelgeuse”), Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, and Catherine O’Hara as her stepmother Delia Deetz. Added to the cast are Jenna Ortega, as the third generation Deetz girl: Astrid, Justin Theroux as Rory, Lydia’s new beaux, Willem Defoe as a ghostly detective, Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, and Arthur Conti as Astrid’s love interest, Jeremy.

Notably missing from the film are Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as Adam and Barbara Maitland, the main characters of the previous film, as well as the actor who played Lydia’s father, Charles. The Maitlands absence makes sense from a technical standpoint, as since they were ghosts they would not age like their real-life actors have. However, in the original film, their ghosts were supposed to haunt the house where Lydia and her family lived for 125 years before they could move on, but in this sequel this point is quickly brushed off with an explanation of, “we found a loophole that let them move on,” with no further details.

Charles’ actor, on the other hand, had to be removed from the franchise due to personal controversy surrounding criminal cases he was involved in. The film explains his absence by killing off his character before the start of the movie, and yet, it still manages to include portrayals of him (sans original actor) about three different ways, which was clever.

From there, though, the rest of the plot kind of falls apart. The main plot involves Astrid and Jeremy mirroring the relationship between Lydia and Betelgeuse in the original movie. However, it takes us nearly half the movie to get there. The other major plot revolves around Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, Delores, tormenting the deceased while she tries to track him, as Willem Defoe’s detective character tries to hunt down and stop her. Bellucci’s character, though, says very few lines the entire movie, and whole noir plot going on around her doesn’t make much sense or really go anywhere.

The third subplot involves Rory (Theroux) as a conman (which isn’t as much a spoiler as one might expect, since it’s fairly obvious) who is trying to rush Lydia into marriage in order to syphon off her fame and fortune. The film feels as if three different scripts were spliced together in its creation and then failed to get cleaned up during editing.

On the other hand, there is a lot going for the movie. Danny Elfman returns as composer to produce an amazing soundtrack. The combination of practical effects such as stop-motion and Claymation and set miniatures with CGI makes the whole film visually stunning like a dark fairytale come to life. Catherine O’Hara is incandescent in her performance of Delia and steals the spotlight in practically every scene, except for when showboating Beetlejuice is present.

By comparison, most of the other actors’ performances feel lackluster. It’s a star-studded cast, but it’s like they’re packed in there without enough room for everyone to breathe. Winona Ryder as Lydia unfortunately spends much of the movie acting more like the meme of herself looking around confused. This is out of character for Lydia, who in the first movie really embodied the idea of the “goth princess,” who is both enamored with the macabre and full of zest for life.

Likewise, Jenna Ortega, another brilliant and beautiful actress who I generally admire, delivered an underwhelming performance. It was as if the actors received very little direction, and so the more seasoned actors such as Keaton and O’Hara just went back and watched the original movie and decided to do more of that, but bigger and wilder.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is pretty to look at, it’s fun and entertaining, and it’s a musical romp, but it just isn’t good cinema. It was overhyped with all the promotion, and so even though I didn’t hate it, I was frankly disappointed.