Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review: "Inventive fun but Tim Burton's belated sequel won't live too long in the memory"

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. Here's our review...

The ghost with the most returns for this belated sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 hit comedy-fantasy Beetlejuice. Michael Keaton’s ghoulish bio-exorcist was always ripe for a sequel - and now we have one. The original film’s Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is now all grown up, a psychic mediator, and presenter of paranormal show 'Ghost House'. Her manager-boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) wants to get married, but she’s more concerned about increasing glimpses of Beetlejuice, who tormented her as a teen. 

Things get worse when Lydia’s father Charles dies (via a plane crash-slash-shark attack, delightfully shown via stop-motion animation) and she must return to Winter River, where she grew up, for the funeral. Joining her is Rory as well as mother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and grouchy teen daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). At this point Astrid – who has the hots for local kid Jeremy (Arthur Conti) – learns of Beetlejuice and the fact that if you say his name three times he’ll re-appear…

As for the 'Juice' himself, he’s running scared from Delores (Monica Bellucci), his "pissed" ex-wife who has just reassembled her severed body parts and wants revenge on her former spouse. Having "a mid-afterlife crisis", he’s soon calling upon a reluctant Lydia to help him out. 

It’s all a bit scattershot; or as one character puts it, "the afterlife is so random". We get giant sandworms, a subtitled black-and-white film interlude, and Willem Dafoe as an undead actor famed for playing a franchise cop, Frank Hardballer. But one thing’s clear amid the chaos: Burton and Keaton are both having a ball. (Good, too, to see a post-Stranger Things Ryder flourishing.) 

There’s also lots to feast on visually - however random - including a 1970s-style all-singing, all-dancing Soul Train, a supernatural locomotive that takes travellers to The Great Beyond. Often it’s the small details that pop, such as Charles’ headstone, designed like a shark fin. The comic-gory special effects are also memorable, not least when Delores sucks the life out of her victims, leaving their skin in a crumpled heap. 

Naturally, there are callbacks to the original (Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat song gets a choral shout-out), although Burton wisely doesn’t overdo the Easter eggs. It’s just a pity that the storytelling sprawls all over the place, with some plotlines (like the Beetlejuice/Delores discord) failing to pay off. But mostly Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a fun afterlife frolic. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is released in US theaters and UK cinemas on September 6. 

For more of what is heading your way soon, check out our guide to the upcoming movies to get on your radar.