Donald Guarisco’s review published on Letterboxd:
This has the playfully macabre sensibility and expressively gothic visual design you'd hope for in a Burton-directed BEETLEJUICE sequel but otherwise, this is yet another case of the Unnecessary Sequel Blues. The script does everything most cinephiles hate in modern sequels: unnecessary new characters, endless recycling of highlights and plot points from the previous film, everything laid out to suggest the whole thing is designed to set up a new franchise (complete with a new lead). It's also poorly written in the conventional sense: tons of quips and sight gags fall flat, there are long expository conversations to explain lots of who-cares backstory that takes place entirely offscreen, character arcs that you can predict the end of as soon as they're set up, an hour of laborious setup is followed by second half that rushes through the good stuff, etc. It's also unforgivable that the Maitlands - the heart of the original film - are dispensed with in a single line of dialogue. There's too much talent invested here for the film to be unwatchable and Burton seems to be having fun in the director's chair but even the flashes of genuine inspiration - a Mario Bava homage sequence in Italian, a climactic setpiece scored by "MacArthur Park" - are just modestly amusing indulgences that don't add up to anything memorable. The best thing about this is that it makes you appreciate what a tight, original, consistently inventive piece of work the original film is.
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