Skip to content
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice comes to cinemas a whole 36 years after the original Beetlejuice was released, and it had been a long time since I’d seen that, so gave it a viewing the night before going to see this. I wasn’t a big fan of the first film, though, so can this sequel improve?
It opens with Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder – still extremely hot) hosting a Most Haunted-type TV show, walking around supposedly haunted houses in the dark, with only an infra-red camera for company, but after all this time, she starts seeing Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) during the studio audience segments.
Meanwhile, stepmother and artist Delia (Catherine O’Hara) has a new exhibition called The Human Canvas, and coming into the plot for the first time is Deadpool’s Monica Bellucci as Delores, who’s brought back to life because reasons, turning out to be an ex-squeeze of Beetlejuice, but they fell out some years earlier – or most likely, centuries ago. She’s a soul sucker, so kills whoever she comes across, first encountering Danny DeVito in a brief cameo as a janitor.
In years gone by, she killed him, he killed her, and now she wants revenge, even though it was tit-for-tat and they should be even. Still, that wouldn’t work for the plot.
One character who isn’t here is Lydia’s father, and Delia’s husband, Charles, originally played by Jeffrey Jones. Plot-wise, I’ll leave you to discover how he’s shown as being bumped off, but in a bid to avoid using the actor, himself, this sceen is done in what looks like Claymation, but then while there are some practical effects used, this film overdoses on CGI more often.
Why isn’t Jeffrey Jones – who some will also know well as Dean of Students Ed Rooney, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – here? As Wikipedia explaines: “Jones was arrested in 2002 for possession of child sexual abuse material and soliciting a 14-year-old boy to produce sexually explicit images between September 2000 to May 2001. Jones photographed the child, and paid him to pose nude on multiple occasions wearing a cowboy hat, with stuffed animals, and dressed as a Native American.
Jones surrendered himself and was released on bond prior to arraignment. Jones pleaded not guilty to the possession charge and no contest to a charge of soliciting a minor. The victim initiated a separate civil action against Jones seeking damages and compensation. The misdemeanor charge of possession of child pornography was dropped following the no-contest plea. His attorney emphasised that there was no allegation of improper physical contact. His punishment was five years’ probation, counselling, and the requirement to register as a sex offender. As of 2021, Jones was listed on the California Department of Justice national sex offender database.”
Despite all this, Lydia still declares his character as “the only semi-normal person in the family“. Hmmm…
But why bring Jones so much into this? A picture of him is also used a great deal. Just say he’s dead and call it a day.
Also add in Willem Dafoe as Willem Dafoe, now a cop in the afterlife, but was once an action star *playing* cop Frank Hardballer when alive, except that he had an accident with a grenade; and Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s daughter, Astrid, a typical Gen Z-er, who believes all the overblown crap about “climate change”, and following a bike ride, crashes her conveyance and chances upon young lad Jeremy (Arthur Conti), for whom she falls.
I expected the original movie’s Maitland couple (Adam Baldwin and Geena Davis) to pop up, but they aren’t in this film, partly because Tim Burton felt their story had already been told, and he didn’t just want to do ‘fan service’, and from what I read that Ms Davis said, once they were dead, they were stuck at that age, but in reality, obviously, they are 36 years older. She looked good in Blink Twice, though.
However, their lack of appearance is just explained away with “they found a loophole” and left the house. So, that’s poor writing. It’s not as if they haven’t had three-and-a-half decades to come up with a better line.
Instead, we get a literal Soul Train, which takes away the souls of the departed, to groovy ’70s soul music. That was quite a good gag, but amongst the near-two hours this film runs, we needed a lot more.
Keaton is great as usual, and after watching The Flash, I’m still wondering when the day will come that we’ll get to see his Batman return… (see what I did, there) in the Batgirl movie.
However, most of this is plotless drivel, with so much of the 104 minutes spent with absolutely nothing happening.
Plus, somehow, the BBFC gave this film a 12A, yet the content looks very much like a 15-cert, like the original film. And following an early f-word where B refers to someone as a “crafty fucker“, he later exclaims, “What the…” and then that f-word is bleeped.
I later found that a PG13 in the US can only have one f-word, but while Warner Bros could’ve made the scene uncut in the UK, and later made it Unrated on home formats in the US, if they were to stick with just the one f-word, the earlier one could easily have been sacrificed, making the “What the fuck?!” so much more impactful.
That said – and I won’t spoil when this happens – for all its faults, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice DOES have one of the year’s best scenes in film, centred around Richard Harris’ 1968 classic, MacArthur Park, which was later covered in 1978 by Donna Summer in a fantastic disco version, and plays over the closing credits. This inspired me to make my own cover version, below.
Tim Burton has downplayed expectations of a third – and presumably, final, movie – by stating that it took him 36 years to bring this one to the screen, so add that on again and he’ll be over 100 years old. Still, the title for this sequel lends the third movie to being titled “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice“, so it’s a no-brainer!
Plus, with a $100m budget, this is one is already on its way to $200m as the first week of screenings comes to a close, and it’ll still take in IMAX revenue in week 2. For myself, the aspect ratio is 1.85:1 in whichever screen you see it, and the regular screens are loud enough for me, so I didn’t need either IMAX or the Dolby screen.
Now, some audience problems… In the handful of Trafford Centre screens that have a separate front section of seats, rarely does anyone sit there, except this film where it’s busy at the moment. I was at the back of the front section, with one man sat almost in front (to the left) and a couple another two rows ahead.
A few mins in, and two girls (about 10 and 8, at a guess, given that it’s dark, but I saw them sneak in and out) sneak in, sitting in front, a few to the right of my seat. God knows where their parents were, but if they’d just stayed silent it wouldn’t be so bad, but occasional chatter.
Then after 40 mins, they left. So glad! ….except that they came back. As they did, and came back to where they were before, I stood up and loudly whispered (if you can do it loudly), “Oi! Will you to shut up?!” (just about managed to stop myself saying the f-word), and they stayed about another 2 seats to the right further away, so if they did whisper again, I didn’t hear them.
There is no mid- or post-credit scene.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 104 minutes
Release date: September 6th 2024
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 5/10
Director: Tim Burton
Producers: Tim Burton, Dede Gardner, Tommy Harper, Jeremy Kleiner, Marc Toberoff
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
Characters: Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson
Music: Danny Elfman
Cast:
Beetlejuice: Michael Keaton
Lydia Deetz: Winona Ryder
Delia Deetz: Catherine O’Hara
Astrid Deetz: Jenna Ortega
Rory: Justin Theroux
Wolf Jackson: Willem Dafoe
Delores: Monica Bellucci
Jeremy: Arthur Conti
Bob-Shrinker: Nick Kellington
Richard: Santiago Cabrera
Father Damien: Burn Gorman
Janitor: Danny DeVito
Le Tigre: Sami Slimane
Jane Butterfield: Amy Nuttall
Clive: Mark Heenehan
Clive (voice): Charlie Hopkinson
Olga: Liv Spencer
Littler Jane: Skylar Park
Dave-Shrinker: Matt Lyons
Jeremy’s Mom: Jane Leaney
Jeremy’s Dad: David Ayres
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.