Danny Defeato.

Did you know that Michael Keaton only has 17 minutes of screentime in the original Beetlejuice? I don’t think you’re legally required to mention that when talking about this movie. Tim Burton directed this.

It’s been a while since the first Beetlejuice movie. Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is now an adult and hosting a TV show where she talks to ghosts. Or pretends to. I’m not sure if the show is supposed to be a fraud, but we do know that Lydia can see and speak to the dead for real. After years of assuming she had seen him for the last time, Lydia starts seeing Beetlejuice again. Learning of the death of her father, Lydia returns to the old house to clean it out, and maybe reconnect with her daughter.

Oh yeah her daughter, Astrid, played by none other than Jenna Ortega. I have nothing against Jenna, I think she’s a very talented actress. She is pretty much the only choice for this role in 2024. This movie has a fantastic cast of side characters. You’ve got Danny Devito as an unnamed janitor in the opening sequence, and I never knew I needed to see corpse Danny Devito chugging drain cleaner but it turns out I did.

Willem Dafoe is in this film because of course he is, playing detective Wolf Jackson. He’s not a real detective but he did play one when he was still alive, so the afterlife just kinda let him do it for real. Jackson is shockingly competent at his job throughout the movie, for a guy who wasn’t actually a real detective. I love every time Dafoe says “Mr. Juice.” Arthur Conti plays Jeremy Frazier, a guy who Astrid finds and who becomes the love interest for a little bit.

Catherine O’Hara is back as Delia Deetz and I love her as always in her character as the starving artist. Who am I forgetting…Oh yeah, Michael Keaton who is once again back as Beetlejuice. Keaton is back in full form, having spent the last few decades working in the Afterlife Call Center. Beetlejuice finds himself looking for help when it turns out that a former love interest is back and hunting him down.

And that love interest? Monica Bellucci as Delores LaFerve. Bellucci’s costume is fantastic, being a body that staples itself back together. Delores is a soul sucker, capable of killing even the dead. Justin Theroux plays Rory, a pizza shit you’ll spend most of the movie wanting to beat the crap out of. Rory is a scumbag manager who is clearly preying on Lydia and exploiting her both financially and emotionally. He tries and fails to connect with Astrid who sees through his bullshit. He’s the kind of guy to spring a surprise marriage proposal on a woman at her dad’s funeral, and he does that.

Beetlejuice 2 reminds me of Men In Black 2 in how it broadly expands on the world within the movie. In this case we see a lot more of the inner workings of the afterlife.

The nostalgia bait is here, but it’s not overwhelming. There’s a relatively awkward scene in the beginning at Charle’s funeral where a chorus sings Banana Boat because we remember that from the first movie. The plot is something of a recreation of the original with Beetlejuice once again trying to force Lydia to marry him to serve his own purpose. There’s a scene where Keaton does the from-behind scary face the audience doesn’t see. There’s another scene where Beetlejuice forces characters to sing and dance.

They do the face stretching that happened in the first movie. And there’s even a scene with the sand worms that comes out of nowhere, and the movie acknowledges how random it all is. But it doesn’t feel cynical. Also I love Burn Gorman. Santiago Cabrera plays Lydia’s ex-husband.

I love this movie. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t worry itself with making some grandiose statement, it’s a silly movie with gross-out moments, jokes, and stuff. There’s some jokes about the absurdity of the world the movie made. Michael Keaton makes use of his one fuck word and then the film censors him to keep the PG-13 rating, and honestly it’s funnier for that. The dead people are really well done in their costumes.

Ultimately Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a top contender for 2024. A fitting sequel that was well worth the wait.

Rating: A+