Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice revives the 1988 classic with creative visuals, stellar performances, and a lively afterlife, despite a fragmented narrative.

Surprisingly, Beetlejuice didn’t get a sequel sooner after its 1988 release. The idea of a second installment didn’t really see the light of day until 2011, but it would take another decade or more to find the material. With the return of Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton wanted to get it right. Keaton tells People : « We [Keaton and Burton] thought, ‘You got to get this right. Otherwise, just don’t do it. Let’s just go on with our lives and do other things.’ So I was hesitant and cautious, and he was probably equally as hesitant and cautious over all these years, »

However, the red carpet wasn’t immediately rolled out for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Despite Burton’s success on Netflix with Wednesday, the filmmaker seemed to have lost his magic at the box office recently after the successive failures of Miss Peregrine and Dumbo. Burton’s new film even came close to being a Warner exclusive on the streaming platform Max, saved by its director thanks to negotiations and a $50 million budget cut. Now safe and sound in theaters, Burton proves that his universe still has its place and importance on the big screen.

When Burton declares that he couldn’t envision a second instalment of his 1988 film without the participation of Michael Keaton, it’s easy to see why. You can tell from the actor’s performance that he’s thoroughly enjoying reuniting with his character. In all his scenes, Keaton – age 73 – swims like a fish in water, giving his ghostly 600-year-old character a remarkable vigor. Set 36 years after the events of the first film, Beetlejuice uses the basics of the first film to install its new features. New names such as Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci join the list of old actors and actresses returning for this sequel.

The introduction of additional characters, however, causes a fragmentation of the narrative threads, resulting in a story with a rather uneven treatment. While Astrid, with Lydia’s help, desperately seeks to recover her soul stolen by Jeremy, Dolores (Monica Belucci) wanders endlessly throughout the film in the Afterlife in search of Beetlejuice. The same could be said for Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a former actor turned Afterlife cop investigating the murders caused by Dolores, who could have benefited from a few more scenes. This would have been enough to allow us to enjoy Willem Dafoe a little more, perfectly at ease in this kind of universe after Poor Things. Fortunately, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is far more entertaining visually than narratively.

Despite the film’s $50 million budget, Burton manages to provide an impressive variety of sets and sequences. Once again, the filmmaker uses the old to introduce the new, taking us back to the bureaucratic, maze-like underground settings of the first, while introducing unseen portions of the Afterlife. Once Beetlejuice is in the game, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wastes no time in showing off its creativity. Through costumes, sets and dances, the film uses everything at its disposal to recapture what made the first film special and captivate us through this fantastic and morbid universe. Sparingly using CGI mixed with practical effects, the world of the dead has never been more appealing to watch, becoming a continuous comic visual spectacle.

The narrative tangle of this sequel is also a fairly light burden to bear, given the efficiency of the editing. Where many sequels or reboots lose themselves in films lasting over 2 hours, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice plays the economy card with a running time of 104 minutes, and it pays off. The first part of the film, full of exposition and narrative introductions, quickly gives way to the world of the dead and its extravagances, accelerating the pace of the story. Here, Burton’s adventure finds just the right dose of action and dialogue, leaving us in the right moment without stretching out unnecessarily.

Disguised as a sequel to the cult 1988 film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is actually a watershed moment for Tim Burton, who could hardly recover from a third theatrical failure and regain the studios’ confidence for a future project. But the challenge seems to have been met. Following its success at the Mostra in Venice, the film is on track to conquer the global box-office with $264 million in revenue to date, and even more to come. Despite a scattered narrative, Burton’s sequel relies on creative direction, excellent performances and a controlled pace.