Beetlejuice's Return Fails to Live Up to the Hype

If you haven't seen Tim Burton's Beetlejuice of 1988, go back and watch it because critics say it's significantly better than Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice of 2024, with a 68% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Returning are Michael Keaton as the wild-haired titular demon and Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, now a paranormal TV show host and mother of a rebellious teen (Jenna Ortega). Beetlejuice and Lydia reunite when Lydia returns to her family home with stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara), now a gallery artist and influencer, following the death of her father. Here's what critics are saying:

• We're living in an age of nostalgia so if you're going to follow up a hit film like Beetlejuice 36 years later, you need "a lega-sequel," not this "mass-produced Hot Topic merch for a new generation," Katie Walsh writes via the Los Angeles Times. She enjoyed "O'Hara's unique wit," "Keaton's command of this character," and "the weird and wonderful chemistry that Ryder and Keaton still possess." But "there's something a bit bland and manufactured" about the whole thing.
• According to David Fear at Rolling Stone, "it's a lot like listening to a better-than-decent cover band do remixed renditions of someone's greatest-hits collection. Except the person behind all of it is, of course, the creator himself." He credits Keaton for going "really, truly, scenery-chompingly big" and applauds Ortega's ability to portray a range of emotions with "a world-class deadpan," but finds everything to be "either too stiff or several beats off the meter."

• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice shows "the movies have changed since 1988, and not for the better," writes Ty Burr at the Washington Post. Though "entertaining enough for a night out at the megaplex or a lazy Saturday streaming at home," it's "a mixed bag" amounting to an "overstuffed ghost story," writes Burr, who rates it 2.5 stars out of 4. On the bright side, "Danny Elfman's musical score, a character in its own right, returns like a runaway calliope."
• It's overstuffed, but that's not a complaint coming from Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com. You get "dreams within dreams, multiple full-on musical numbers, several promises/threats of marriage, and a deranged final sequence that ranks with Burton's most decadent displays of pure inspiration," he writes. Burton doesn't offer much of anything new, but Keaton's "sensational" performance, Ryder's "standout" one, and that "handmade-seeming feeling" add to the appeal.

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