‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ review: Tim Burton’s sequel is absolutely bananas

Movie review

It’s not often that I walk out of a movie screening wondering if I hallucinated the entire thing, but that’s what happened after seeing Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which is, let me just say, a lot. Not necessarily in a bad way — it’s fun! — but be warned that you may never hear the song “MacArthur Park” in quite the same way ever again.

So, it’s been 36 years since the original “Beetlejuice” (how can this possibly be correct?), and former surly goth teenager Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is now a middle-aged, black-clad psychic, because of course she is, with her own TV show called “Ghost House.” (She is, for the record, still rocking the zigzag-cut bangs.) As karma would have it, she now has her own surly goth teenager, Astrid (a delightful Jenna Ortega), with whom she has a troubled relationship. When Lydia’s stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara, weaving some Moira Rose into the character) calls the family together at their old home in Winter River, you know it’s just a matter of time before somebody says “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” thus summoning their stripey-suited ghost nemesis (Michael Keaton) and causing mayhem.

Back when Burton made the first “Beetlejuice,” he was an emerging young director best known for “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”; now, a “Tim Burton movie” is shorthand for a particular brand of horror, self-consciously retro and elegantly dark. At this point, he has nothing to prove, and you can see how “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is simply a romp for him — a chance to reconnect with old friends, try out a few new CGI techniques (the original “Beetlejuice” is a reminder of how such effects were then in their infancy), and say “why not?” If you’ve ever wanted to see a corpse (Monica Bellucci) stapling herself together to the strains of the Bee Gees’ “Tragedy,” or visit the depths of hell’s dry cleaner (this is not a metaphor, and actually it perhaps makes sense that hell would have a dry cleaner), or watch the cast members dancing around an enormous cake left out in the rain, with its sweet green icing flowing down … well, this is your movie.

Should you be looking for narrative cohesion, look elsewhere. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is bananas, in its high-end way — bananas wrapped in gorgeous Colleen Atwood costumes, and performed by actors who are clearly having a ball. (Speaking of bananas, yes, “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” makes an appearance, though not the way you’d think.) I don’t think we’ll see a “Beetlejuice 3” in 36 more years, so we may as well enjoy what we have now. As the song says, we may never have that recipe again.