Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Unlike the Ghostbusters reboots, this does have at least some of the charm of the original.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice shines with Burton's striking visual style and dry wit.

There’s a resultant clumsiness to it that makes the traditional zaniness of the whole project feel telegraphed.

This sequel has so much plot and moving pieces that I wouldn't even say come together -- they really just collide in the end.

The sequel is, in many ways, exactly what it looks like: a revival of a decades-old movie with plenty of cultural stock to cash in on, happy to play the hits. But it is also an artist’s reflection on his journey from ghastly pariah to mall-goth staple.

Fortunately, there isn’t a whiff of cynicism to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Burton shows real affection for the first film’s characters and genuine curiosity about how they’re doing three decades or so later.

It’s strange how a film that’s only 104 minutes feels both overstuffed and intermittently undercooked. There’s a lot at work here, multiple plots jockeying for supremacy and swirling together into something cacophonous and at times exhausting.

A slightly disappointing legacy sequel from Tim Burton featuring the glorious return of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara to a franchise they made famous, but in a film overstuffed with characters, plot holes and ridiculous story beats.

Once a proud young artist pioneering the exploration of the pop-macabre and the surreal, Tim Burton appears to have become a ghost of his former self. There are few, if any, traces of the iconic filmmaker in 2024’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

When I most definitely will run into a drunk guy dressed like Beetlejuice on Halloween, if I ask him to tell me about his night, it will almost certainly be a more interesting story than the one Beetlejuice Beetlejuice tells.