The Juice is Loose! Unfortunately, so is the plot, the writing, and the acting.
After the death of their family patriarch, the Deets family are reunited at their spooky family home. Plagued by visions of a trickster demon she thought she had left behind, Lydia Deets (Winona Ryder) tries to reconcile with her estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’hara). Little does she know that there’s trouble afoot in the afterlife. Now three generations of Deets women will need to work together to save each other from the mayhem and madness of Beeltejuice, and perhaps things even worse than a farting, rotting, mischievous demon.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the sequel to the 1988 comedy which starred Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Catherine O’hara, and Jeffrey Jones. Some of the original cast is back for a second go with Ohara, Ryder, and Keaton all reprising their roles from the original. Sadly, only Keaton really makes a mark in the new movie, stepping right back into the titular role as if no time had passed. O’hara (Delia Deets) and Ryder (Lydia Deets) are a bit wooden. Jones (Charles Deets) was left out of the movie for understandable reasons surrounding legal issues and a 14 year-old boy. Davis and Baldwin, who were the character and plot center of the first movie, are not present at all in this film. The cast is joined by Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Justin Theroux. However, none of them seem to be well utilized. Bellucci has very little screen time, Ortega is a wooden exposition machine, and Theroux in particular is just off-putting through the entire movie.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice suffers from nostalgia sequel syndrome. Someone thought there would be an audience to watch Keaton play around again, but they didn’t really have a strong plot or concept. These days, little things like a lack of a strong story don’t get in the way of making a movie with an invested audience. There are three villains, kind of, but none of them are really set apart as the “big bad.” There are three or four plot lines, kind of, but none of them are strong enough to carry the movie. There are way too many musical scenes, some of which last too long. There are a couple of odd claymation styles sequences that don’t quite mesh with the visual of the rest of the movie, even taking into account some faithfulness to the original. The novelty of the 80s movie is a little stale here, and some of the things that were funny then are just repeats we’ve already seen now.
Overall, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is ok, but underwhelming. There were a number of times during the film where I found myself sighing at the poor dialogue, exasperated by poorly developed character motivation and action, losing attention through "tell instead of show " exposition, and begging for someone to get Theroux off the screen.
If you go in with low expectations and just want a moderately fun time at the movies with very little expenditure of brainpower, and especially if you plan to take kids, this might be a movie for you. It’s PG-13, with some spookiness and special effects gore because of the dead people. However, at today’s movie prices, you might just want to wait for it to come to streaming.