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Back in the spring of 1988, when Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" arrived in theatres, America's most notable fantasy film of the moment, not too long in release, was Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride," a movie that was maximally sweet and charming ... and offered nothing in the way of wisecracking, crotch-pumping, visibly decomposing protagonists. That was a time we won't be going back to, because "Beetlejuice" changed everything. Which is why its new, 36-years-later sequel, the cleverly titled "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," is unlikely to change anything.

"Beetlejuice 2," as I think we should go ahead and call it, is also a Tim Burton joint, with another dark-and-stormy Danny Elfman score, and it reunites three stars of the first film: Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara and the inimitable Michael Keaton -- Beetlejuice himself. (Other featured players, like the late Sylvia Sidney, Robert Goulet and Glenn Shadix -- who was a hoot as the swanning interior decorator Otho -- were unavailable for reuniting. As was the still-with-us Jeffrey Jones - the movie's bumbling paterfamilias - who's been resident on the national sex offender registry for the last 20 years.)

What the new movie lacks, alas, is any good reason for being. The first film was perfect: A pair of attractive young-marrieds find themselves suddenly dead in exurban Connecticut and watch in horror as a family of pretentious Manhattanites moves into their country home. Burton was firing on every creative cylinder in telling this story (a clip of the brilliant "Day-O" dinner party scene has racked up nearly two million YouTube views in just the past two years), but it was not a story that cried out for continuation. That the director decided to continue it anyway may diminish his original achievement.

The plot is haphazard and strained. Ryder's Lydia Deetz, the lovable goth girl of the first film, is now the middle-aged host of a reality TV show dedicated to the investigation of haunted houses. Her father (the Jones character) has died in a transoceanic plane crash, his upper body (and recognizable face) gnawed away by a shark. Lydia has also lost a husband in some sort of Amazonian misadventure (a plot thread that just hangs there for the most part), which has left her a single parent bringing up a spook-skeptical teenage daughter named Astrid (the formidably deadpan Jenna Ortega) and contemplating the marital entreaties of her smarmy show producer Rory (Justin Theroux). Then there's Lydia's stepmom, the demented Delia (O'Hara), who is still a very bad artist.

Also on hand, for practically no reason at all, is Willem Dafoe, who plays Wolf Jackson, a dead actor and onetime action star who now heads the afterlife police force (with a nasty head wound and cue cards). Dafoe gives this character his all, which is considerable, but it still feels bolted onto the story. And the great Monica Bellucci (Burton's current partner) somehow exerts only a scattered effect on the proceedings as the soul-sucking Delores, vengeful ex-wife of the movie's titular demon.

Speaking of whom, while it takes a while for Beetlejuice to show up, when he does it's like he never left. At the age of 73, Keaton still infuses this character with a full blast of manic energy, presiding over every scene he's in like a decomposing potentate of afterlife jive. And the screenwriters give him some snazzy lines, too. (Asked what went wrong between him and the furious Delores, the Juice says, "I'd make her do unseemly things, then post the pics.")

Being a Tim Burton movie, "Beetlejuice 2" isn't a complete dog -- and it's no "Dumbo," or "Dark Shadows," either. There's a bit involving an "inner child" that's up there with some of the director's wildest creative conjurings, and some of the movie's many callbacks to the first film are pretty cute. But there's a "Soul Train" section (complete with Don Cornelius figure) that should never have been allowed to escape whatever brainstorming meeting it was hatched in. And there's an elaborate lip-synch number built around the Richard Harris version of Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park" -- the dumbest song of the 1960s, or maybe any decade -- that feels like it goes on forever ... and then keeps on going.

That "Beetlejuice 2" doesn't come close to matching the unhinged delights of its beloved predecessor is no surprise. And if the first film didn't exist, how excited would we be about this one?

To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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