Review | Venice 2024: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie review – Tim Burton revisits his fantasy comedy
Michael Keaton is back as the quip-heavy ghoul and aided by a strong supporting cast in sequel to 1988 film that has its moments
3/5 stars
“Death is hard,” Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) complains in Tim Burton’s long-time-coming sequel to his 1988 fantasy-comedy Beetlejuice.
Certainly there’s plenty of it in this light-to-the-touch tale, starting with the funeral of Lydia’s father, Charles, who has died in a bizarre plane crash/shark attack.
Lydia, a psychic mediator with her own ghost-hunting TV show, must return to Winter River to bury him. The quaint town where she grew up, it’s also the place where she encountered Michael Keaton’s afterlife spook Beetlejuice as a teenager.
Now she senses the quip-heavy ghoul is back and out to cause trouble. Joining her in Winter River is her oily manager-boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), her distraught mother (Catherine O’Hara) and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), a grouchy teen who refuses to believe in ghosts.
Meanwhile, Beetlejuice is terrified: his vampish, soul-sucking ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci, excellent) is on the warpath, having stapled her dismembered body parts back together.
