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Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice -- a review

Despite coming out thirty six years after the first film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, once again directed by Tim Burton, wound up being vastly entertaining, adding lots of pleasant surprises, like the use of stop-motion animation. The sequel takes place within the same real-life time frame, with Lydia Deetz, played with wry humor by Winona Ryder, now the host of a ghost hunting show. She’s also the mother of Astrid, a teenager played by Jenna Ortega. They live with Delia Deetz (the always great Catherine O'Hara), Lydia’s step-mother and Astrid’s step-grandmother.

After the death of Charles--Delia’s husband and Lydia’s father--during a bird-watching accident involving sharks, the Deetz ladies must go back up to the creepy house in Winter River, Connecticut for his funeral. This is the same place where Lydia first encountered Beetlejuice all those years ago, and she is understandably reluctant to even mention his name, lest she accidentally calls forth Beetlejuice once again. Astrid finds a new friend named Jeremy (Arthur Conti) in town by literally running into his backyard tree house after crashing through the fence. And it’s not long before Beetlejuice himself (Micheal Keaton) comes crashing through the boundaries separating the afterlife from our world.

And it’s great seeing him again. Michael Keaton once again shines here as Beetlejuice. Burton and his writers understood that the key to this character was to not show too much of him, so that when Beetlejuice is seen, it’s a special treat. The whole sequence where Beetlejuice explains his back story, with black and white flashback scenes, and spoken in Italian while looking like a Mario Bava film, was just sheer comedic genius.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice manages to be even funnier than the original. The new additions to the cast--Justin Theroux as Rory, Lydia’s manipulative boyfriend; Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, a ghost detective; Monica Bellucci, as Beetlejuice’s avenging ex-wife--all play their parts perfectly within the film’s dark gothic humor. Present day “It Kid” Jenna Ortega manages to create a relatable new character in Astrid, who lacks the dark sarcasm of her Wednesday while still being a caustic and witty teen who's facing Beetlejuice's weirdness for the first time.

Tim Burton had worked with Ortega before, when he directed the first four episodes of Netflix’s Wednesday (really looking forward to season two, BTW). Not only had he brought Ortega over from that production, but Burton also brought along the show’s creators and runners, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who wrote the final script for Beetlejuice 2. Composer Danny Elfman returned to do the score, which included the spectacularly cheesy MacArthur Park, sung by the late, great Richard Harris. And the use of this really weird song here in Beetlejuice 2 is just sublime. Simply put, I loved this movie. In addition to having another great flick to enjoy during the Halloween season, it's just nice having Beetlejuice and friends back once more. --SF

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