'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice' Review (2024)

While painless and sometimes clever, Tim Burton's refreshingly irreverent legacy sequel is ironically undercut by a deluge of new characters and new subplots.

Beetlejuice (2024)
104 minutes
rated PG-13 (Violent Content, Language, Suggestive Material and Drug Use)
Opening in theaters the week of September 6 courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery
A Plan B Entertainment and Tim Burton Productions picture

Directed by Tim Burton
Written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith
Producers - Burton, Marc Toberoff, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Tommy Harper
Starring - Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Danny DeVito, Arthur Conti, Amy Nuttall and Burn Gorman
Cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos
Edited by Jay Prychidny
Music by Danny Elfman

It’s no secret that the idea of a Beetlejuice sequel filled me with dread and despair. First, my displeasure with legacy sequels has only grown as the franchises have been more aggressively positioned with returning actors playing the same characters, wearing the same clothes and saying the same lines as those found in the “Gah, my childhood!” originals. Second, the notion of Tim Burton having to retreat to the decades-old familiar was akin to forced arrested development, partially spurred on by moviegoers who didn’t show up for the likes of Big Fish, Sweeney Todd and Big Eyes and then claiming he hadn’t made a good film since Sleepy Hollow. What’s bemusing is that judging by Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Burton himself seems to share both frustrations. It’s a romp through familiar territory from an artist who seemingly takes issue with viewers demanding he be the same filmmaker at 66 that he was at 29.

The copious new characters and new subplots don’t organically merge and serve only to clog the 104-minute feature. As a singular stand-alone feature, it’s not particularly good, but (weirdly enough) that it falters for old-fashioned reasons unrelated to IP fidelity or generational nostalgia is almost refreshing. Whether or not Burton “willfully” returned to this world, there is a sense that he wants to throw in every visual gag or character arc he can dream up for this one and possibly only encore (and among his last chances to do something “original” on a tentpole budget), which becomes suffocating as the vital narrative beats play on fast-forward. Half the film plays like a conventional “child of the protagonist undergoes the antithesis of their parents’ initial arc” legacy sequel. The other half plays like a two-part episode of (a PG-13 version of) that 1990s Beetlejuice animated series. Neither is well-served by the abundance.