Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Tim Burton's belated sequel to 1988's weird, wild, and hilariously macabre Beetlejuice abounds in morbid, nauseating delights.

A busy, chaotic, mixed bag of recycled material that just leaves us wondering why we bothered summoning this project back from the dead in the first place.

Beetlejuice hasn't exactly reformed, but somewhat like Burton, he's straighter, smoother, less tightly wound and less a destabilizing force... but I still giggled.

Mr. Burton's finest films appear to be behind him, but at his best he can still deliver dazzling madness.

Sometimes, the dead should just stay buried.

We've waited 36 years for this sequel and despite some rough plot patches, Michael Keaton returns in peak form to the funniest role of his career as the trickster demon who's determined to let his freak flag fly. The Juice is loose, babe. Act accordingly.

Here "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is at last, and a mixed bag it is, too, with highs that are almost up there with the maniacal, macabre invention of the original and lows that are big-studio business as usual.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is bananas, in its high-end way - bananas wrapped in gorgeous Colleen Atwood costumes, and performed by actors who are clearly having a ball.

It's another tick mark on the seemingly endless list of 2020s franchise installments that serve as belated victory laps for past comic triumphs, while blunting what was unique about those triumphs. But on its own, it isn't much of a movie.

It won't take you anywhere new, particularly, but let's face it, that's not why most people will take the trip.

"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" only proves how much of a unicorn the first film was, pairing the right filmmaker at the right time with the right cast and the right material. "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," by comparison, is dead on arrival.

While the story may barely hang together, there's at least an overall sense that everyone involved in this movie wants to be here, which isn't always the case for a legacy sequel.

For once, the question "Why a sequel?" is moot. Not because we know the answer. (Do we?) But, who cares? It's funny. It may even make you feel better about, well, death.

As legacy sequels go, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice gets so much right it's easy to gloss over the majority of its more obvious missteps.

A better-than-expected legacy sequel with its heart in the right place.

Good news: the macabre, anarchic spirit of "Beetlejuice" has been successfully passed down to Baby Beetlejuice. Bad news: it's on screen for about 60 seconds.

Fortunately, there isn't a whiff of cynicism to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Burton shows real affection for the first film's characters and genuine curiosity about how they're doing three decades or so later.

The sequel is, in many ways, exactly what it looks like: a revival of a decades-old movie with plenty of cultural stock to cash in on, happy to play the hits. But it is also an artist's reflection on his journey from ghastly pariah to mall-goth staple.

This sequel has so much plot and moving pieces that I wouldn't even say come together -- they really just collide in the end.

Unlike the Ghostbusters reboots, this does have at least some of the charm of the original.