Os Fantasmas Divertem-se

An overly ambitious special-effects comedy obviously influenced by the success of Ghostbusters.

Tim Burton's imagination jumped into the saddle and held onto the bridle with Beetlejuice.

For sheer off-the-wall audacity, Tim Burton's demented Beetlejuice certainly demands respect, even if it's more enjoyable in concept than in execution.

Betelgeuse doesn't fully emerge until the film is half over, but Michael Keaton makes a strong enough impression in the role to explain why the picture is named after his character.

The film is a dazzling display of director Tim Burton's unique pop culture sensibility.

Much as Joe Dante did in ``Gremlins`` and ``Innerspace,`` Burton delights in creating in live-action format the impossible effects of cartoons and comic strips.

It's an experience, rather than another helping of the same old thing.

Beetlejuice means something good: that imaginative artists can bring a fading genre back from the dead.

Luckily, Keaton pops up from his grave to liven things up when the antics pitting the good ghosts against the intruders become a trite cat & mouse game.

An appealing mess.

Though a lot of [Burton's] moves don't connect, enough of them do to make this spotty, dissonant movie a comedy classic.

It's a movie that's mostly bright, witty and wry, and sometimes exceedingly funny.

A certifiably zany movie in the best possible sense of the word.

Beetlejuice is a weird but often funny blend of special effects and Yuppies that sounds a lot dumber that it plays.

The film could coast on crackerjack special effects, but Keaton strengthens the premise with an irresistibly vulgar, unrestrained portrayal.

The makers of Beetlejuice manage to go beyond pastiche and succeed in creating a unique, wacked-out world.

Unrecognizable in his weirdo makeup, Keaton behaves outrageously; it's a marvelous characterization.

While Beetlejuice will make absolutely no sense to those who demand coherence from a film, all viewers will delight in its dizzy, postliterate, postmodern style.

At the end, you feel exhilarated, because the cunning way Burton works is part of the joke. His innocent deviousness lifts you up high, like helium.

It's the apparitions that are the real stars: They're gross, gaudy and appropriately horrific.