Cue “My Heart Will Go On”…it’s been 84 years…

Well, 36 to be exact, but it’s exciting to see this nefarious phantom back on our screens. Keaton’s face journeys and physical comedy made him a fixture in the self-deprecating comedy roles of yesterday and it’s easy to see he hasn’t lost it.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings us back to our favorite strange and unusual, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) who now is a multimillionaire, using her kicked up ability to see the dead ever since her stay in Winter River, CT. Managed, kanoodled and mantra’d to death by her ever pokey boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux), Lydia is having a bit of trouble with the spotlight and having visions of a certain striped-suit fella, who after all this time, still has the pitter-pats for ol’ Lydia.

We’re introduced to Lydia’s hopelessly estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) who’s uncomfortable boarding school life has been exacerbated by her mother’s chosen vocation and Astrid, a steadfast skeptic, doesn’t see that rift mending anytime soon.

BUT, a big bulletin might just get these two gals back in the same room. Charles Deetz has passed on and Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara) fulfilling her dream of being a famous artist, is devastated and calls her step-daughter turned friend (dawwwww), Lydia to deliver the horrible news.

Famously absent from this installment (outside of Genna Davis and Alec Baldwin) is Jeffrey Jones, the original Charles Deetz, for shall we say, heinous issues and proclivities in his personal life. Charles Deetz is posthumously celebrated in a few ways here which is point one of my bugaboos with this sequel…but let’s put a pin in that.

The film B, well C, perhaps D story is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s long dead ex-wife, Delores (Monica Belucci) who is on the hunt for her love just as BJ tries to make his way back to Lydia. She’s pieced herself back together including her finger, yes that famous finger.

Delores is poised to be the big bad of the film, but isn’t given much to do outside of continuing to be the absolute icon she is, which I’m sure is heavy lifting, but not enough to carry a decent storyline.

Hot on her tail is underworld cop Wolf Jackson (Willem DaFoe).

Now DaFoe could read me the cautions to a window blind and it’d sound like Shakespeare, but he’s given the opportunity to go full ham in this role and he runs with it, but to what end? To what end??

So, how do all these crazy kids get together? Well, it’s messy.

Several other bads enter the frame and the storylines weave a bit of a confusing tapestry but you know what you’re getting with Beetlejuice, part fable, part hoot, and this one delivers on the fable part…somewhat. Ortega’s new teen romance is reminiscent of YA ghost story, Wait Til Helen Comes, but if you’re expecting another fable from Lydia’s side, all you’re getting is hoot.

WHICH IS TOTALLY FINE! I repeat, totally fine. The diehards will be pleased simply on the existence of a new BJ/Lydia story because we fell in love with their screwball relationship in the animated series so that satisfaction comes in droves. But if you’re looking for breakout performances, check elsewhere. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is full of schtick, jokes revisited, Keaton doing extra, O’Hara being a kicked up Delia, Ryder still being strange and unusual and Ortega staying angsty. Everything this type of sequel should be…36 years later was exactly the right time.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival, ahead of a September release in theaters.