| Worth seeing: | for Michael Keaton's anarchic reprisal of his much-loved eponymous demon |
| Director: | Tim Burton |
| Featuring: | Michael Keaton, Wynona Ryder, Amy Nuttall, Arthur Conti, Burn Gorman, Catherine O’Hara, Danny DeVito, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Santiago Cabrera, Willem Dafoe |
| Length: | 105 minutes |
| Certificate: | 12A |
| Country: | US |
| Released: | 6th September 2024 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder) hosts a supernatural talk show on TV, produced by her boyfriend Rory (Justine Theroux). She’s started seeing visions of a ghost who haunted her more than three decades ago, named Betelgeuse – pronounced “Beetlejuice” (Michael Keaton).
When Lydia’s step-mother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) tells her about the sudden, tragic death of her father, she picks up her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) from boarding school and heads back to her haunted teenaged home for the funeral.
Rory inappropriately uses the wake as an opportunity to propose to Lydia, while Astrid runs away and meets a fellow teenaged loner, Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who offers her an escape from her family.
But when that escape takes her to unexpected places, Lydia has to summon up help from Betelgeuse to save her daughter.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Early in the career of one of Hollywood’s most idiosyncratic directors, Tim Burton brought us the tale of the mischievous ghost Betelgeuse – known to his “friends” as Beetlejuice – in a memorable comedy horror that helped to boost the careers of stars including Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara. All three return after 36 years for a sequel.
That’s a long time to wait for a follow-up and you’re left wondering who has an expensive divorce to pay for – or a grandchild to put through university – because it’s not really clear why they thought it was worth the bother.
They take their characters from the original film and just turn up the dial – in many ways, it’s the same, but crazier. Narratively, though, it’s weaker.
There seems to be little point to almost anything that happens – and half an hour into the film, you still won’t really know what it’s about – it’s a few familiar characters and a few new ones doing not very much, for no particular reason.
It’s interesting to see some of the characters a generation further on in their lives – Ryder’s Lydia has gone from a troubled teenager to the mother of one – and Keaton’s reprisal of his much-loved demon, with his faithful sidekick Bob, is still a lot of fun. The film only really comes alive when he’s on screen.
But most of the story beats feel formulaic or predictable, there’s nothing fresh or clever and it’s not really funny enough.
If you haven’t seen the original, there’s not really much reason to see it, as you won’t know or care about any of the characters – but if you do know the source material, it sounds fun on paper, but it’s just a little bit underwhelming.