Tim Burton

To enter the underworld, we learned from the original Beetlejuice, you need to draw a door. In the new film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton’s maniacally mischievous demon draws a cartoonish bomb complete with a long fuse, all the better to blow us away. Twenty-six years after Keaton and director Tim Burton introduced this madcap “ghost with the most,” an underworld rogue who claimed he could scare away the living, the two have reunited for a sequel stuffed with macabre humor, immersive world-building, and eye-popping (and sometimes gut-spilling) special effects, costumes, and makeup.

Hey all you ghouls and flesh bags, welcome to Nostalgia Theatre. It’s been 36 years since The Juice was loose and he’s finally ready to reanimate to save himself and the Netherworld in the sequel to Beetlejuice. It’s called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, you know, for Beetlejuice 2. Are ya hip? Or is your’s missing? While there are some good gags, with the best being as the credits roll, it can’t compare to its classic counterpart, which, by the way, if you haven’t seen you’ll be lost in the new one.

Beetlejuice is back! The original film was released in 1988 and now Michael Keaton returns to reprise his iconic role. Surprisingly, the sequel is better than the first movie. I recently rewatched the original, which I loved as a kid, and it didn’t quite hold up and should not have been rated PG. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is appropriately rated PG-13, and it has an engaging fun story from the start.

Tim Burton hits a lot of familiar beats in his much belated sequel to his classic 1998 film. Michael Keaton has lost none of his vigour as Beetlejuice, but the character is less interesting the second time around. Catherine O’Hara’s Delia is the scene stealer. In terms of long-gestating legacy sequels there have certainly been worse examples, and there have been far better. It’s one of Tim Burton’s more successful recent efforts. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has enough colour, flair, and humour to make it enjoyable, but it’s not a pinch on the original.