Review: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Blows the Original Out of the Water
Walking into Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to review it, I expected another terrible night at the movies. Who would expect a sequel to Beetlejuice that came out three decades too late would be good? The film wasn’t just good. It made the original look dull by comparison.
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ is bigger and better than the original
When it comes to movies, bigger isn’t always better. For example, the Halloween franchise was a lot better before some filmmakers tried to give it a complex mythology involving twisted familial lines and a religious cult. Star Wars was much better before Disney started pumping out a new movie every year in the 2010s. The first Psycho film was superior to the much bloodier Psycho II or that terrible Bates Motel show.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is bigger and better. For starters, the movie has a much larger cast of characters than the original. Every single one of them is a welcome addition to this world. From Monica Belluci’s bonkers succubus to Jenna Ortega’s cynical teenage recluse, each of these oddballs form Tim Burton’s glorious new tapestry.
The gags are catnip for reviewers
In addition, the humor is more over-the-top here. Beetlejuice has jokes about everything, including Jimmy Buffett, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the contemporary art world. This eclecticism fits with the film’s eclectic horror/comedy/fantasy/coming-of-age genre.
And almost all of the jokes land. Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse was meant to be a Gothic take on Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Pepé Le Pew. Here, the gags are on the level of the best of the Warner Bros. cartoons. A last-act setpiece involving “MacArthur Park” is so good, it feels like we’ve time-warped back to the 1990s and Burton never made Alice in Wonderland and fell down a rabbit hole of mediocrity. We’ve all been waiting for him to make a return to form for far too long, but that return to form is finally here.
Why Tim Burton wanted to make ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’
During a 2024 interview with Empire, Burton said he didn’t feel great when he remade Walt Disney’s Dumbo. “I actually had sort of lost interest in the movie industry,” Burton said. “I felt like I’d had enough with studios. I’d had enough of all this kind of stuff.” However, he read a great script for a Beetlejuice sequel, and he was ready to rumble.
He said that having children influenced his approach to his latest film. “You have kids that change you,” he said. “After all these years, that became the reason to make it. I identified with Lydia back then, and I identify with her now.”
The Batman director said that he felt an emotional connection to the new film. “From the first [film], I really identified with Lydia,” he said. “It was a character that I understood, that I felt very strongly about. The new film became very personal to me through the Lydia character. What happened to Lydia? You know, what happens to people? What happens to all of us? What’s your journey from a Gothic kind of weird teenager to what happens to you 35 years later?”
Burton has grown up and found a way to make that fun.
