“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” did not disappoint me in the way that I thought it would.

It still disappointed me, but only after I analyzed it.

Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was released in theaters on Sept. 6, 2024 to great reviews. Since publishing, the movie sits at a 62 on Metacritic, a 77% on the Tomatometer and an 81% on the Popcommeter.

The story follows an adult Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) who is now the host of a paranormal TV show as she tries to mend her relationship with her teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega). The movie follows the two as Astrid finds herself stuck in the afterlife, forcing Lydia to ask for help from everyone’s favorite bio-exorcist, Betelguese (Michael Keaton) to get Astrid back.

This movie had a lot going on, and not in the same way the original movie did.

For one thing, the movie introduces a lot of new characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it took away a lot of time from the main plot line.

When you have big name actors like Willem Dafoe, Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton you want to give them a sufficient amount of screen time. However, neither Dafoe nor DeVito are main characters and do not really add much to the film.

Sure, it was fun to see DeVito make a guest appearance in the film, but his character only helped move one of the five plot lines along. The same goes for Dafoe, though his character plays a bigger role in the movie, I found the character itself lack luster and boring.

The two play a role in Betelgeuse’s main conflict. In the movie, Betelgeuse is now the CEO of his own bio-exorcist firm, but there’s trouble in paradise when his ex-wife, Delores, (Monica Bellucci) decides to hunt him down for revenge.

I would argue that this is by far the weakest plot line.

I was not scared of Delores because she didn’t feel like a threat to Betelgeuse. Throughout every iteration of Betelgeuse, he is shown to be a powerful demon whose only Achilles’ heel is his name. I always had a feeling that, deep down, he was going to find a way to get out of it.

If Delores was actively trying to murder Lydia in a fit of jealousy, I would probably have been more scared of her. She would have been an active threat to our protagonists (Lydia and Astrid) instead of a passive threat.

Not only that but that plot-line introduces too many new characters. Fans of the original movie are not watching a sequel because they want to know what the new characters are doing, they’re watching a sequel because they already have an attachment to the original characters.

Speaking of original characters, it is a crime and shame that they didn’t put Barbara (Greena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) in this movie.

The main plot line of  “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” surrounds Lydia’s relationship with her daughter. It would have been interesting to explore how she sees motherhood and how the mother figures in her life influenced her. Yes, Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is Lydia’s step mother, but Barbara played a motherly role in Lydia’s life in the original movie.

That was actually one of the main plot points in the original film. The Maitlands wanted, but could not have, children, so Lydia became the closest they ever got. Lydia, who was treated awfully by her step mother and all but ignored by her father, saw Adam and Barbra as pseudo-parental figures.

In fact, in the original movie, Lydia plans to jump off the same bridge where the Maitlands died , and it is only after Barbara and Adam talk her down that she decides to live her life.

It is really disappointing to me that the Maitlands, main characters in the original movie, are reduced to nothing but a few mentions in this film.

Another thing that annoyed me about this film was the lack of attention to detail.

For instance, Betelgeuse is summoned every time someone says his name three times. Delores could have called his name three times and get it over with. That is literally his only weakness, why was it not exploited?

Though Delores was a literal soul-sucking demon, she was not nearly as good of an antagonist as Lydia’s boyfriend, Roy (Justin Theroux).

I hated Roy from the moment I saw him, and that’s a good thing. He was an antagonist I wanted to hate and he was a lot scarier than Delores because his actions had real world implications. He honestly should have been the main villain instead of splitting the antagonist role between three different characters.

However, what I found really interesting about this movie was the changes they made to Beetlejuice’s character.

In the original movie, Beetlejuice is the main antagonist. He’s slimy, perverted and a pedophile. He tried to marry Lydia when she was only sixteen.

Not only that, but he was genuinely scary. We as an audience knew so little about him that it heightened his actions on screen.

In this movie, he no longer takes on the antagonist role. Instead, he transforms into one of the protagonists which shows how he evolved through the different medias Beetlejuice was released in.

Soon after the original movie, a cartoon show came out. This show retconned the actions of the movie and made Lydia and Betelguese besties. Betelgeuse still had his same sense of humor, but he also became more charming in this adaptation.

In 2018, Beetlejuice took the stage in the form of a Broadway show. This Beetlejuice paid more of an homage to the original while still having his own quirks. In the Broadway show, Betelguese has more fourth-wall breaks and hits on Adam instead of Barbara.

With the rise in popularity of these two Betelgeuses, it’s no surprise that Betelguese became a protagonist in the sequel film.

Despite my critiques of the plot and characters, I actually walked out of the movie theater genuinely enjoying it.

The soundtrack was phenomenal, and the few call-backs they had to the original were done well, especially the opening shot, where they open with the credits rolling over drone shots of Winter River.

The movie definitely had its highlights, including the “soul train” bit, as well as the singular F-bomb. Unlike in the original film, Delia steals every single scene she’s in.

Plus, I absolutely adored the subtle character interactions between Astrid and Delia, showing that the two have a somewhat decent relationship despite Astrid’s relationship with her mother.

Though this movie has its flaws, I would definitely watch it again. It is a good film to shut your brain off to. I give this movie four out of five mustangs.