Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice  ★★★

TIM Burton’s first film in five years is arguably one of his best of the 2000s.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice may be a little lazy in its overarching story, but all the moving parts are pretty entertaining.

It’s meant to be a sequel to the 1988 film, but most of the story threads are repeated with few changes.

But that doesn’t really matter when you have a bunch of fun characters, some nice one-liners, inventive sets, oodles of cartoonish gore and Michael Keaton still doing his thing in the title role.

For those who haven’t seen the original, a family moved into a haunted house and the resident ghosts, played by Adam Baldwin and Geena Davis, set about scaring the family away.

Only the daughter Lydia, played by Winona Ryder, could see the ghost couple who hired a ‘bio-exorcist’ (Beetlejuice) to get rid of the family. But Beetlejuice changed his mind and set about getting Lydia to marry him so he could return from the afterlife.

In the new film, set years later, Lydia is still played by Ryder and Catherine O’Hara repeats her role as Lydia’s mum.

As an adult Lydia has used her ability to summon and speak to ghosts to become a successful internet personality. Lydia now has her own troublesome, teenage goth daughter, played by Jenna Ortega.

The family winds up back at the original home which they intend to sell, but Beetlejuice and another new villain are not quite finished with terrorising them.

As soon as the familiar strains of a Danny Elfman’s music score kick in you get a nostalgic feeling and the new film mostly maintains a cracking pace.

All the cast are good, with Keaton of course being the standout. Two actors I can usually take or leave, Catherine O’Hara and Justin Theroux, have some of the best moments.

Willem Dafoe’s character grows on you, but the great Monica Bellucci is wasted as Beetlejuice’s vengeful ex-wife.

Watched at the cinema.