Though Tim Burton is an artist in every sense of the word, we tend to approach him as a filmmaker whose work evinces joy because those works are fun to watch. This is the guy whose first feature was a vehicle for Pee Wee Herman. And when we think of those Burton films that were less successful artistically, it was usually the ones where the fun was in shorter supply. The long-overdue sequel to one of his best films, Beetlejuice, has already been touted as a return to form, mainly because it is so purely enjoyable in an adolescent way, which tends to overwhelm the notion stuck in the back of my brain that it’s rather a sloppy movie, more intent on delivering grisly jokes than in presenting an integrated movie experience. But, then again, Beetlejuice the character, as perfectly realized by Michael Keaton with absolutely no loss in comical impact despite the fact (because of the fact?) that he is now closer temporally to the state the character embodies than he was in 1988, is all about chaos anyway, so who should expect a tidy storyline?

Maybe it’s my own memory that’s the problem, but I didn’t brush up on the original until after I saw the sequel, and Burton isn’t particularly concerned about bringing people like me up to speed, so he integrated any backstory obligations into the present tale by reviving the Deetz family with the elimination of the paterfamilias in a comically macabre manner, thus simplifying matters enormously. The remaining members are thus reunited at the home where they were haunted by the ghosts of the previous owners. The teenager of the house, Lydia (Winona Ryder), who was bamboozled into almost marrying the mischievous, decayed Beetlejuice back in the day, is now a middle-aged TV psychic with a history of addiction and a manager-BF, Rory (Justin Theroux), who seems woefully unsuited to keeping her mental health issues at bay. Stepmom Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is some kind of multimedia artist, and the new addition to the household, Lydia’s own teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), by a man who’s already moved off this mortal coil, thinks her mother’s spritual vocation is a crock and her extended family a bunch of weirdos—which, of course, they are. Ironically, it’s Astrid who, by an accident that went over my head, ends up in the afterlife and thus those she left behind invoke Beetlejuice’s return to somehow help her find her way back. However, this time the sly imp has his own crisis to address, a former wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), he dismembered some centuries ago and who has reassembled herself via staple gun to come and get him, more out of connubial determination than any sense of revenge, which seems to be a more frightening prospect to the inveterate bachelor-for-eternity. The chaos, in other words, is purposely built-in, which is why the plot (or plots, since there are several) runs off the rails at a certain juncture and all you’re bound to remember is the bloody set pieces, of which the extended musical number set to Richard Harris’s unforgettable version of “Macarthur Park” is the topper.

In short, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is, pardon the cliche, meta in the best way. It continually comments on our familiarity not only with the previous film and the characters, however slight that familiarity may be, but with Burton’s entire gestalt—the actors often seem to be more in on a joke than in playing their characters. Willem Dafoe’s late-in-the-movie cameo as a private dick of the dead is the funniest extended non sequitur I’ve seen all year. There’s absolutely no reason for him to even be here, but…why not? The fact that Dafoe, a relatively minor presence, was the exuberant face of the film during the initial press junket says more than I ever could about how much people enjoy working with Tim Burton. It’s not just the audience who has fun.

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Warner Bros. Ent.