This long-threatened sequel to the minor 80s cult favourite finally emerges as both an affectionate throwback and a more contemporary self-aware comedy-thriller. With Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) now a grown-up TV 'psychic mediator' with her show Ghost House and her similarly-sulky straight-talking teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) at boarding school, the dysfunctional family is brought together by the death of Astrid's grandfather, with SoulSucker (Monica Bellucci) on a revenge trip to find her ex-husband, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, reliably slipping back into character), and inevitably the living/dead reunion awaits. The film re-establishes the weird Beetlejuice concept swiftly early on, before the film becomes largely a touchstones box-ticking exercise that crucially sidelines the entire revenge story in favour of underworld quirkiness. The cheap-and-cheerful aesthetic recalls the original, the Fall/Halloween setting looks good and is used well, and the eventual reveal of teen Astrid's emerging ability with a good twist is effective. Feeling rather thin overall, like the original this film comes across as more of a hit-and-miss procession of ideas that is never as funny as it thinks it is (the extended MacArthur Park sequence feels interminable), rendering it a somewhat unnecessary commercial nostalgia-grab at this point.
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