Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortaga, Justin Theroux, Willem Defoe, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti, Nick Kellington, Santiago Cabrera, Burn Gorman, Danny DeVito, Sam Slimane, Amy Nuttall, Mark Heenehan.

It is the reunion we never knew we needed to dispel gloom and want of a sense of humour that has been deprived to us for so long; for whilst some comedy has gone down a road where it thinks to much of ramifications and not enough time on what is actually funny, what is cinematic anarchy in full flow and timeless.

The problem with the abundance of comedy now is that is has been airbrushed, sanitised, cut to pieces savagely by those who wish to be seen to do good but instead irreparable harm has begun to show, causing splinters, dividing an issue where for the majority of time there was none to make, and yet there is a safe place in which to cause a riot on screen, there is a subject that is not taboo or considered forbidden, the underworld, the hereafter, the great beyond, none of there names are unmentionable, distasteful or off-limits, for Hell is a place to party with the best of them, and the only thing barred is a lack of sense of humour.

In the hands of Tim Burton, in the presence of Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortaga and Willem Defoe, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the comedy we not only need, but should actively adore, it is a punch to the comfortable, a wonderful mocking of the visions of serenity captured by the peddlers of afterlife who see halos and peace and not the continuation of meddlesome bureaucracy to which we should understand as the perpetual joke played on our minds.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a blast because it has refused to bow to the dogma of the modern age, and refreshingly with Michael Keaton returning to the title character we have an actor willing to put comedy to the test in director Tim Burton’s grandstanding opus.

Almost 40 years have passed since the original film was released, and whilst the world has altered its perception, the sense of maniacal fun and mischief is still very much at the heart of this eagerly awaited sequel; and whilst some of the original actors from the much loved film have moved on, or been quietly disposed of for other means, the core group remain faithful to the sense of just who they are appealing to, and as in jokes galore fill the screen, as the visualisation of Tim Burton’s ideas take hold, so the welcome is increased.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice works because it has to, it is seemingly the last bastion of good comedy on screen, the shock value of a moment where the disgust outweighs the sensibility and is played out fantastically.

Ian D. Hall