'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' review: Tim Burton, stars deliver enough laughs to cast a spell
CTV
CTV's film critic Richard Crouse says the 'Beetlejuice' sequel delivers enough laughs, fan service and new ideas to cast a spell.
Betelgeuse, the bio-exorcist made famous by Michael Keaton in the 1988 film of (almost) the same name, thinks of himself as “nightmare material.”
But for fans of the much-loved original movie, his reunion with director Tim Burton is a dream.
The new film, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” returns to Winter River, along with three generations of the Deetz family. They are: wacky artist Delia (Catherine O’Hara), mother of goth TV personality Lydia (Winona Ryder)—"The Living. The Dead. Can they coexist? That's what we're here to find out,” she says— and grandmother of the rebellious Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who thinks her mother’s clairvoyance is a sham.
Brought together by the passing of Deetz family patriarch Charles (originally played by Jeffrey Jones), the trio becomes a quartet when Astrid opens a portal to the afterlife, releasing the ghostly presence of Betelgeuse (Keaton). “The juice is loose!”
Lydia, now engaged to greasy television producer Rory (Justin Theroux), must reckon with her past betrothal to Betelgeuse.
“When I was a teenager, a trickster demon terrorized our entire family and tried to force me to marry him,” says Lydia, while the rambunctious spirit has marital troubles of his own. His ex-wife, the soul-sucking Delores (Monica Belucci), has pulled herself together—when we first see her, she’s reassembling her dismembered body—and is looking for revenge.
