Keaton said in March 2014 that this is the only sequel he’s interested in making
Synopsis
Following a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return to their home in Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the afterlife. Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux and Monica Bellucci share why filming Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice was an experience they’ll never forget. Tim Burton has said that this film would only be made if Michael Keaton returned to reprise his role.
See you later, motherfucker
Lydia informs Astrid that Rory wants to get married at midnight on Halloween night. That would make it November 1st, since midnight is the start of a new day, and therefore it wouldn’t be Halloween anymore. Beetlejuice: I think it was Dostoevsky who said… SPOILER: There’s a dedication in the end credits to Bob the Skinner, who died in the film.
Featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers: Michael Keaton/Connor O’Malley (2024)
MacArthur ParkWritten by Jimmy WebbPerformed by Donna SummerCourtesy of Island Def Jam Music GroupUnder license to Universal Music Operations Ltd. All I can really do here is speak my truth and not worry about whether people agree with it or not. As a man who has a nine out of ten review for “Beetlejuice” after coming to this website, I can only report that I found this sequel to be a bit (though not entirely) a mess. Following the death of her father, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) returns to her childhood home, with her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara), boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), and daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega).
It seems like they’re just there so there’s an excuse for particular actors to be in the movie
Lydia, who can still see ghosts, has been having visions of Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), which only intensify when he returns to the house. But Betelgeuse has his own problems, involving the return of his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), who has the ability to extract the remaining souls of the dead and make them “dead.” What I found really interesting was that for years, Burton and Keaton steadfastly refused to be involved in a sequel unless the story was right. So for this to be the one they moved forward with, which feels more like a bunch of ideas stuck together with duct tape than an actual story. There are four main plots, two of which could have been exorcised (pun intended) partially, or even completely without making much of a difference.
Keaton almost single-handedly drags the film down to being passable
It’s also a little too enamored with recreating moments from the original, so there are two gags that are slight variations on earlier ones and another song-and-dance possession scene, which is a strong moment, but again, just a remix of the first movie. They cleverly keep his character out of most of the film so that when he does appear he’s a breath of life, but it’s a change the film needs too often and I don’t think I found anything the others did to be funny. As you can see from the score, as negative as this review seems, I wouldn’t say I disliked the film overall, but it feels too close to being the “money-making” sequel we could have had at any point in the last 30 years.