Plot
After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.
Cast
Keaton, Ryder and O'Hara all return, sadly Baldwin & Davis do not. However for the record I fully understand Burton's reasons for not including them. Also along for the ride are the always excellent Ortega, Dafoe, Theroux and Bellucci although she's absolutely wasted here. Devito offers us a memorable cameo appearance and
Burn Gorman offers us a couple of scenes.
Verdict
Beetlejuice 2 is one of those sequels people had talked about for decades including countless rumours, fake news reports and even fan made trailers but I didn't expect to ever actually happen. When the trailer dropped it was official, undeniable and I was both excited and hesitant. You see I'm of that generation who saw the original movie when it first came out and I loved it but 36yrs later getting a sequel! Could it meet expectations? Could the characters hold up? Well, the answer is a very mixed bag.
Over three and a half decades the logical thing this needed to do was play to nostalgia hard, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice surprised me in how little it did this. Yes there are nods here and there, yes there are throwback scenes and yes there is a certain song that returns but for the most part they really make a movie here for a new generation who likely haven't seen the original more than Beetlejuice fans and I personally didn't appreciate this and deemed it a baffling choice.
Next up the cast, Keaton as Beetlejuice didn't feel the same, I'm not sure it was him or the writing but he wasn't the captivating character we love and know from the 80's. Lydia? Ryder delivered and was fantastic, this was a great return. O'Hara again was very much Delia, but we do remember Delia is a deeply annoying character right? So this much screen time compared to the original movie was most certainly not a good thing. Theroux was excellent, Ortega was brilliant, Dafoe was his usual madcap self and Bellucci was.......well, she was there. You see I love Bellucci but ultimately she was setup as the movies antagonist, she's barely on screen, contributes nothing and even the characters swansong is rushed and quite frankly terrible.
You see the plot is very tired and extremely generic, it needed that nostalgia, it needed Beetlejuice, it doesn't have much of either. And when we do have the Beetlejuice scenes they're, very very lackluster. And the inevitable music scene, I'm in awe how bad that was, it felt tacked on, it wasn't funny, it was far too long, the song choice was deeply confusing and I just cannot stress how poor it was.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn't bad, it's just rushed, uninspired, doesn't tick boxes it logically should have and just fell flat for a movie 36 years in the making.
Rants
Okay I enjoyed Bob, or should that be the Bobs? The shrunken head people stole the movie (Not a spoiler it's on the poster!). See these guys were great, I'm not saying they could have their own movie but I'd happily watch more. Stick them all in their yellow suits and they could be like action Minions! Let's have Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice with more you know.....Beetlejuice, Bobs, Ortega, Ryder and O'Hara can stay at home.
The Good
Some nostalgia
Some of the cast are fantastic
The Bob's
A few decent moments
The Bad
Too much falls flat and simply isn't funny
Far too much O'Hara
Not enough Nostalgia
Feels rushed, forced, doesn't quite click.
Not enough Beetlejuice
Bellucci is wasted
Weak plot
That musical scene!
