Beetlejuice Beetlejuice picks up thirty years after the events of the first film, with Delia Deetz being a famous artist, Lydia having her own ghost adventures type show, and her daughter Astrid being a goth angsty teen. The Deetz family has to deal with the sudden loss of the paternal figure in their lives while also grappling with their own individual battles. When Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega, gets stuck in the afterlife and Beetlejuice’s ex wife Delores, played by Monica Belluci, starts stalking him, Lydia makes another glorious deal with Beetlejuice to save her daughter and get Monica Belluci off Beetlejuice’s back. Chaos ensues.

As I’ve said many times, I am not a big fan of sequels. I was not very excited to see this, since it is a sequel so many years after the first I figured it was another cash grab. That very well might be true, but I unexpectedly had a really fun time watching this. Michael Keaton soars as the titular character once again, and with this star studded cast, it is almost a perfect comedy. Catherine O’Hara remains one of the funniest women who has ever set foot on screen, and the welcome additions of Willem Dafoe and Justin Theroux also put in the work to get some laughs. A few complaints are that I think I liked the practical effects and primitive CGI in the first movie a lot better than I liked the new CGI stuff in this one. It looked corny and even though this movie isn’t geared towards kids, the sandworm looked like something out of a Nick Jr. tv show. Also, there were a lot of moving parts that could have been cut down to one A and one B plot. All in all it is a very fun, new take on the Beetlejuice universe, and I loved it. 

8/10