Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, goes the incantation — the words used to summon Beetlejuice, that good old irreverent ghost with the striped suit, comically receding shock of colored hair, and penchant for generally beneficial mischief. You’ve gotta say it three times. So, it makes a lot of sense that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice only repeats it twice, in a movie that formally delivers what you expect but does not do very much that you do not expect — two-thirds of a Beetlejuice (1998) sequel — and that might be what you want, more of what you like.
If you love the old visual gags, that’s entirely what the new movie is built upon. Modeled after Harryhausen-type stop motion movies, graciously, the same love for practical effects and tangibly grotesque moments of joy are captured in the sequel. Tim Burton understands the spirit of the thing. He has not permanently abandoned his station, as the director of a specific kind of ghostly autumnal movie and has doubled down on some of that.
This is, perhaps, the result you’d want from the sequel. It’s a comedy but it doesn’t have many good laugh lines or well written jokes. What it does have are a slew of macabre machinations that look terrific on a big screen and it doesn’t feel algorithmic or computer-generated in what’s included. Instead, it feels like Tim Burton & co. gave their damnedest effort to comb through the original movie and remake its best moments, while trying to springboard new ideas off of ones the audience already readily accepts as a matter of nostalgia.
So, the movie is visual-forward and it moves very well in that way. Where Beetlejuice Beetlejuice begins to atrophy is in the storytelling and character development. There’s a plot to the movie for sure — a portal to the Afterlife is opened and Beetlejuice is summoned to help mend the problems of the living and the dead, chaotic comedy ensures — and so, it is very functionally and adequately fulfilling its end of the bargain.
There is a lot of potential here. The best news of all is that Michael Keaton is so game for his classic Beetlejuice role, which genuinely could’ve filled much more of the movie than it does. Meanwhile, the returning Deetz family, from the first film, have their own new layers and character dynamics to explore, and Astrid Deetz has opened this hellish portal, and becomes the center of the film, energetically played by Jenny Ortega. Winona Ryder anchors the film, returning as Lydia Deetz, and is up for playing the role that grants the audience passage between the original and new movie.
There are some especially fun cameos and moments with returning characters and bits — and this is the through line of the movie — Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a movie of moments. A partial resurrection. A half-incantation of that dead spirit. You get most of what you want, without dealing with the dread of a cynical outcome, instead you get a very positive and bittersweet ending, for now — Tim Burton is back in his old style and it’s working. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a good movie full of memorable moments that do not always coalesce into a perfect movie that is more effectively the sum of its parts.
As the bell tolls on the start of the autumn season and the veil thins over the Earth and the spirits are more alive and closer to us than ever, it begins to feel like a very good idea, going to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Sometimes, we can get what we want.