‘Better off dead’ or ‘a fun afterlife frolic?’: First ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ reviews suggest that Tim Burton and Michael Keaton have done the impossible

Let’s face it: it’s 2024, and Hollywood is getting a bit too comfortable pumping out legacy sequels that exploit the audiences who either made ’80s and ’90s movies their personalities back in the day or are making ’80s and ’90s movies their personalities now.

As such, studio executives can usually get away with spraying a vague storyline with an IP-coded sheen and calling it a payday, much to the chagrin of the entertainment industry’s creative integrity. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with its surplus of dark, campy, and alternative renown supplied exclusively by its 1988 predecessor, has therefore always been at risk of going down this very road. And while this particular sequel had to contend with the same pair of screenwriters who wrote I Am Number Four, critics have nevertheless decreed that Tim Burton and Michael Keaton have largely returned to save the day here, with the former coating every frame with his cheekily gothic sheen and the latter displaying an even peppier step as the title character than he did 36 years ago.

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter admitted to writing “Tim Burton’s back!” in his notes on multiple occasions, stating that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice stands out as “a resuscitated screen property that’s actually fun — not to mention one that asserts its own reason to exist.” Owen Gleiberman of Variety, meanwhile, suggests that despite the film not holding a candle to its gonzo, “monster-kitsch jolt” of an ancestor, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice still manages to channel its nostalgic chops in a genuinely healthy way ⏤ one that relies less on references and more on capturing that specifically twisted vibe that so many fell in love with back in 1988.

That’s not to say Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t without its detractors, though. Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson dubbed the sequel “hollow” and “lifeless” (which the film itself would probably take as compliments, funnily enough), and as “a sad testament to the original film’s ingenuity.” He concluded that the film is “better off dead,” something Michael Keaton himself even publicly wondered, while DiscussingFilm’s Ben Rolph deduced that the story is “scattered all over the place” and at least one villain is “wasted.”

Altogether, though, it sounds as though Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has impressed (or, at the very least, satisfied) far more than it’s disappointed, and as far as the legacy sequel zeitgeist goes, that’s some unthinkably refreshing news. Granted, perhaps that says more about the state of Hollywood’s remake obsession than the actual mileage of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but the consensus of the film’s lack of a faceplant still proudly remains, and we can all get in on that consensus when Beetlejuice Beetlejuice creeps into theaters on Sept. 6.