"Hollywood has a history of reanimating the decaying corpses of long-dead movies", so it was perhaps "just a matter of time before somebody delved into the grave marked Beetlejuice", said Wendy Ide in The Observer.
Tim Burton made his name with the original, and he has also directed this "belated sequel" – and it's not bad at all.
Rocking "exactly the same haunted Victorian doll wardrobe" as she did in the first film, Winona Ryder reprises her role as Lydia Deetz, now a widow and distant mother to rebellious teenager Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Also returning from the original cast are Catherine O'Hara (as Lydia's stepmother) and Michael Keaton, as the titular prankster-demon-"bio-exorcist".
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'Pleasingly idiosyncratic'
There is a sense that "decades-old ideas have been dusted off, dressed up a little and passed off as new", but what redeems the film is the fact "that those ideas were so wigged out and distinctive in the first place".
Sure, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is derivative, but it's also pleasingly idiosyncratic", and though it can't match the cult appeal of the original, "it has a lot of fun trying".
'Lacking coherence'
I'm afraid I found the whole thing "messy and tiresome", said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. This unnecessary sequel is pure "nostalgia bait", and throughout, you can "hear the writers cackling and high-fiving each other as they crowbar in favourite details" from the original, regardless of whether their inclusion makes any sense.
"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is, alas, mediocre mediocre, agreed Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Burton has some fun with the "great hereafter"; it lasts a "sensible hour and 45 minutes", and boasts a lively retro soundtrack. But it "lacks coherence"; it often feels like no more than an "assembly of random macabre ideas from Burton's undeniably fertile mind".
