Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” just had its world premiere at the opening night of the Venice Film Festival where the film received a 4.5 minute standing ovation.
Burton was joined by Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci and Willem Dafoe at the premiere.
It follows on from a press screening earlier in the day where the film reportedly scored an enthusiastic response. Some have dubbed it Burton’s best film in years and overall a pretty good movie too.
Others quite actively disliked it though. It is a legacy sequel, reliant on knowledge of the first and callback as such, but is one of the better ones of its type seems to be the overall assessment. Here’s a sampling of reviews:
“It doesn’t give you the full monster-kitsch jolt that the original film had. Yet there’s good fan service and bad, and as stilted and gimcracky as it can sometimes be, I had a pretty good time… part of what the new movie delivers is honest nostalgia for the moment when Burton’s clown-spirit-from-hell sensibility still had the kick of shock value” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Hollywood’s cynical strip-mining of successful IP in its quest for the everlasting franchise has taught us to be suspicious, so there’s something restorative for the audience, too, in experiencing a resuscitated screen property that’s actually fun — not to mention one that asserts its own reason to exist.” – David Rooney, THR
“This long-gestating sequel is the most brazenly Burton-esque and bonkers Tim Burton has been in years in terms of macabre Frankenstein creatures, weird situations and off-beat humour. In fact, he’s even more disturbing and freaky with his signature style than in the first Beetlejuice” – Tori Brazier, Metro
“Burton wisely doesn’t overdo the Easter eggs. It’s just a pity that the storytelling sprawls all over the place, with some plotlines failing to pay off. But mostly Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a fun afterlife frolic. ” – James Mottram, Total Film
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is more like a freakier, gorier and altogether slimier equivalent of Top Gun: Maverick. That is, it’s a sequel which has come along after 36 years, pays intelligent and affectionate homage to its predecessor, but surpasses that predecessor in almost every respect.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC
“Burton has just allowed himself to be silly and have fun; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is filled with low-stakes wisecracks and kindergarten-style one-liners, but the effect works. The movie carries you along on its wriggling magic carpet of mayhem—and features one sequence of creepy-elegant-funny cracked poetry that’s classic, old-school Burton” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME
“The film is strongest when it remembers it’s a Tim Burton film and has licence to get weird. While it’s slicker and less homemade-feeling than the 1988 vintage, there are still flashes of B-movie brilliance: a stop-motion animation sequence, some delightful shrunken-head prosthetic effects, and two demented birth scenes with the most ghoulish prosthetic baby this side of American Sniper. It’s moments like this, when Burton lets his freak flag truly fly, that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice earns its stripes.” – John Nugent, Empire
“His most full-bloodedly Burtonesque venture in ages, with its boisterous mix of the facetious and the funereal. This is very much a nostalgia trip, and so dependent on referencing the original that newcomers may not click with it” – Jonathan Romney, Screen
“No chance is wasted for an inventive visual or verbal punchline, and it is a joy to be in a handmade world that does not simply rely on CGI. There are jokes about everything from the haunted house subgenre to parasitic grief industries to teenage boys that read Dostoyevsky. Burton has thrown everything at the wall and then carefully sculpted what has slithered down into a rollicking yet disciplined supernatural caper with a heart” – Sophie Kaufman, Indiewire
“Tim Burton allows the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to have fun, even if they’re all off in separate movies that barely overlap. Its story is intentionally robbed of dramatic weight, but this makes way for the goofy, imaginative practical effects of Burton’s early days, resulting in a small-scale legacy sequel that doesn’t take itself too seriously (because it doesn’t need to)” – Siddhant Adlakha, IGN
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice beats back to the scene of past triumphs. It’s once, twice, three times a lazily amiable horror sequel; a makeweight festival opener that provides little beyond its arrangement of chintzy American Gothic. What fresh timber there is comes courtesy of a sparky subplot involving Lydia’s rebellious daughter Astrid, who is played with just the right note of soulful sullenness by Jenna Ortega” – Xan Brooks, The Guardian
“A rats nest of callbacks and plot, so jumbled and overstuffed it’s almost abstract. It’s yet another legacy sequel that serves as sad testament to the original film’s ingenuity.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
The film will begin its international rollout on September 4th and opens in the U.S. on September 6th.
