Patchy and occasionally fun, this sequel's taken too long to arrive and takes too few risks to really add anything of consequence to Tim Burton's much-loved 1988 original.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice takes up in the present day, with Winona Ryder's Lydia Deetz now the middle-aged host of a supernatural talk show called Ghost House, produced by her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux).
She gets freaked out when she begins seeing visions of the mischievous ghost Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), who haunted her family thirty-six years earlier.
Delia, Lydia's stepmother, then informs her of the death of her father, Charles. Lydia's teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is scooped from boarding school as the remaining family members gather at the old Deetz house where ol' Betelgeuse was first encountered.
Astrid then gets involved with a local lad and lands in a spot of bother in the afterlife - and Lydia realises that the only one who can help is you-know-who.
There's also a subplot that makes very little use of Monica Bellucci, who is cast as Betelgeuse's former wife, who comes back with a vengeance. She features so little, her part could've been filmed in a decent day's shooting.
The first half-hour drags along, but the film finally takes off to some degree after Keaton appears, though several of the scenes are glorified reenactments of moments and visuals from the original movie.
There's a good joke that's repeated once too often, a sing-song that works really well, while Keaton and Ryder are both fine - but the best turn in the movie is by Catherine O'Hara, whose admirable energy keeps the whole thing chugging along.
Sadly, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like it was designed by a focus group approved by Hollywood suits. It has the look of a box-ticking exercise rather than a creative imperative that just had to be made.
As someone who loves the original, has been a long-time Tim Burton and Michael Keaton fan, and still harbours a massive crush for Winona Ryder, I was quite disappointed.
It's not half-bad, but it could've - and should've - been a lot better.
