Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

In a legacy sequel to the Tim Burton Comedic Classic Beetlejuice (1988) we catch up with Michael Keaton’s 'Betlegeuse' in the afterlife and Ryder’s Lydia Deetz in the world of the living. Betelgeuse is apparently back up to his old tricks working as a bio-exorcist. Meanwhile, in our world, Lydia is the star of a popular paranormal reality show, leveraging her ability to see ghosts to become a daytime star When her father, Charles, dies in a shark attack .Lydia reconnects with her stepmother, O’Hara’s Delia, and her estranged daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). They return to their estate in Winter River, the setting of the original film, to attend a funeral and a wake, inadvertently reviving Betlegeuse and the spirits from the beyond. The set-up of the plot takes around half of the running time, which isn’t such a bad thing when you want to catch up with the characters, but the real reason for a sequel is a chance to let Michael Keaton loose again , on a new generation of the Deetz household, but with unnecessary shunted in side plots ;such as an ghostly ex-wife, Bellucci’s Delores and an afterlife a police investigation by ghost detective Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) ,the film seems to bog down the central premise. Beyond the narrative challenges, Beetlejuice fails to include the crucial component that contributed to the original film's triumph: a suitable foil to Michael Keaton's frenetic energy. In the first instalment, Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis portrayed a recently-deceased couple, serving as the audience's perspective as they navigated the bizarre yet ordinary aspects of this comedic afterlife. In this sequel, however, here though the legacy sequel attempts to have Astrid serve as the audience surrogate, but it never quite works since Ortega’s Astrid is a little much in the know already. And in the modern audience fans minds , we already know her as Wednesday Adams ,on a meta level so how surprised can we really expect her to be! It might be challenging to evoke confusion in a legacy sequel, as a significant portion of the audience will already know the characters and their universe, thus requiring little explanation to follow the story. This film appears to be aimed at longtime fans eager to relive Keaton’s zany antics, laugh at O’Hara’s ridiculous quips, and admire the stunning set designs that reveal fresh aspects of Burton’s darkly whimsical afterlife. While the movie may not be flawless, it’s refreshing to witness Tim Burton enjoying himself as a director once more.