It’s easy to see why Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, director Tim Burton’s follow-up to the 1988 classic, opened the 2024 Venice Film Festival. By the end of its high-spirited one hour and 32 minutes, the film has established itself as a celebration of the original.
Some might call that fan service, but I prefer to say that Burton, who’s now 66, treats Beetlejuice Beetlejuice more as a belated encore than a sequel.
I'm leaping ahead but, for me, the best thing about the movie arrived at the end. A finale built around Donna Summer’s rendition of MacArthur Park — lip-synched by two of the film’s characters — gives Burton's second helping a near lyrical lift, a small triumph of silliness.
Generally, though, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice provides intermittent amusement built around a few veterans of the original cast, most notably Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, the scuzzy demonic dead guy with a wiseass show business flare and an uncontrolled libido.
Other returnees include Catherine O’Hara as the narcissistic self-proclaimed artist Delia, who’s also stepmother to Lydia Deetz, the returning Winona Ryder. Once a sullen teenager, Lydia is now the widowed mother of Astrid Deetz (Jenna Ortega), this edition’s skeptical teen.
As if to goof on the monetization of horror, the screenplay makes Lydia the host of a popular TV show called Ghost House, which purportedly investigates hauntings. Justin Theroux serves as the host’s producer, a self-aggrandizing sleaze ball who wants to marry Lydia.
The joke fizzles. Theroux’s Rory is so obviously phony that his sincerity becomes a one-note gag.
The plot consists of a variety of contrivances that connect the movie’s set pieces and introduce new characters such as Willem Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson, a TV actor whose afterlife existence consists of acting out tough cop roles.
Monica Bellucci plays Delores, a soul-sucking corpse who reassembles her severed body parts with the help of a staple gun. Delores once was married to Beetlejuice and now seeks vengeance for no better reason than he chopped her into little pieces. It's an old story; some people can't take a joke.
Arthur Conti appears as Jeremy, a young man who seems to connect with Astrid until the movie adds a dark twist.
The 1988 original -- which I saw in a long-gone theater in a long-gone mall -- certified Burton as a director to watch. Beetlejuice felt like a breakthrough, an outrageously inventive second film from the director of Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
In the new edition, Burton smooths out rough edges with an animated sequence about the death of Lydia’s father, a healthy application of gook, and the addition of Beetlejuice’s mini-spawn, a flesh-chomping baby. A brigade-sized horde of ghosts in large suits sport heads that have been shrunk to the size of grapefruits.
Don't look for Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, the original ghosts. Their characters have moved on in their afterlife journeys.
It's hardly surprising that the feeling of discovery has waned, but there’s still some fun left in a movie with a plot that can feel as stitched together as Bellucci’s Delores.
Besides, with Keaton fully embracing Beetlejuice’s slimy ways, Burton finds enough comic life among the dead to keep his movie from foundering.
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