MOVIE REVIEW – Who hasn’t been eagerly waiting for that clever, decaying rascal to make his way back among the living? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel, brings back the Deetz family with even more emotional baggage and introduces a new generation, embodied by the ever-morose Jenna Ortega.

The film manages to craft a fresh story for the youngest Deetz, which is not just a recycled version of Lydia’s journey from the original, while successfully expanding the Afterlife universe of the original. It’s odd, though, that the two most beloved characters in the franchise—Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton)—end up with surprisingly limited screen time. Their less fleshed-out portrayals don’t derail the film but do diminish the emotional impact of seeing the old gang reunited.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set about thirty years after the events of the original, with Lydia now a famous psychic who has turned her communication with the dead into a lucrative career. When her father, Charles, dies unexpectedly (previously played by Jeffrey Jones, whose role is humorously sidestepped in this sequel to avoid recasting), Lydia and her stepmother Delia (the delightful Catherine O’Hara) return to their iconic Winter River home to sort out his estate. Lydia’s teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) reluctantly tags along, and their relationship is hanging by a thread. Meanwhile, on the other side of the veil, Beetlejuice has problems of his own—including a murderous ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) and his lingering obsession with Lydia, which soon collide.

Jenna Ortega shines, while Lydia and Beetlejuice fall short

As Astrid, Jenna Ortega arguably gets the most compelling character arc, grappling with her father’s death and a strained relationship with her mother, whom she sees as a fraud. She isn’t just a Lydia clone—though there’s no denying the personality resemblance—and her storyline enriches the Beetlejuice universe without merely copying the original film. If Lydia weren’t such a popular character, it’s easy to imagine the film focusing primarily on Astrid’s own grief and burgeoning relationship with Jeremy (Arthur Conti), alongside a few Beetlejuice-inspired escapades. However, the creators find themselves in a bind—how do you do justice to Lydia and Beetlejuice while also introducing a fresh, young character who might become the new face of the franchise?

Frankly, they don’t manage this balance very well. Lydia appears as a middle-aged woman who has sold herself out for a career that drains her emotionally and makes a mockery of her supernatural abilities, leaving us with a sad, broken figure. It’s hard to see why the writers thought audiences would want this version of Lydia, but it’s quite a downer. Similarly, Beetlejuice feels like a letdown. Despite his name being in the title of the original film, and becoming such an iconic character, it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t on screen nearly as much as Lydia or the Maitlands. In the sequel, he gets a lot more screen time, but it somehow means much less—perhaps he works best as a menacing off-screen presence with brief appearances. Here, we may see too much of him. Much of his time is spent on the bizarre backstory of his ex-wife, a death cult leader, a subplot that leads nowhere. Do we really need any of this? Less is more, especially with an over-the-top chaos agent like Beetlejuice. There’s a moment in the film when Lydia desperately summons him, and he triumphantly emerges from the model town—this would have made for a much more effective reintroduction of the character. Better than watching him in a middle-management job in the Afterlife, surrounded by a bunch of buffoonish underlings.

Balancing the Old and the New

The main issue with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that the script never quite captures the quirky charm of the original film. There are too many loose threads, too many subplots that don’t get properly resolved—and probably didn’t need to exist in the first place. The film feels like it’s caught in a quiet inner struggle, perfectly reflecting the dilemma faced by long-awaited sequels: How much should it honor the characters that made the original Beetlejuice a hit, and when is it time to forge ahead with something new? In the end, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice fails to strike a balance, but still offers enough to appeal to fans of the original, especially with its depiction of the endless bureaucracy of the Afterlife. Who knows, maybe a future Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will finally get it right.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-