Director Tim Burton seems more interested in updating than duplicating his 1988 hit. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice demonstrates affection for the characters and genuine curiosity in how they’re doing now.
The impish demon known as Beetlejuice has been dead for centuries, but he’s enjoyed a pretty long life in popular culture.’s hit film spawned a trippy animated TV series, which I happily devoured as a kid in the late ’80s, and, more recently, astage musical that’s now touring the U.S. Even so, I wasn’t hankering for a sequel to the Burton movie, which might have turned out to be just another fan-servicing, nostalgia-milking cash grab..
It’s a silly twist and a fairly inconsequential part of the breezy, anything-goes plot. But that breeziness is part of the movie’s charm. Like its predecessor,is basically a supernatural screwball rom-com, in which marriage is never a matter of “’til death do us part.” The movie is refreshingly unsentimental about love, whether it’s Astrid getting hoodwinked by a teenage crush or Lydia being courted by not one but two unsavory suitors.
Beetlejuice is less of a villain this time around, though, as played by a fast-talking, shapeshifting Keaton, he’s still a pain in the neck. He hasn’t really changed much in 30-odd years; in the afterlife, that’s a drop in the bucket. But the living characterschanged, in interesting ways. Delia, no longer just a sculptor but a multimedia artist, is mellower than before, though O’Hara gives her a dash of dottiness, perhaps channeling her Moira Rose from.
The result may not reach the first film’s darkly funny heights, but then, to his credit, Burton seems more interested in updating than duplicating his earlier achievement. There is, however, one scene — a lovely choral performance of. It was enough to make me imagine the late, great Belafonte himself hanging out with the various misshapen denizens of this fantasy afterlife — and having, to his surprise as well as mine, a remarkably good time.
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