PHOTO COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES

For 36 years, the character Beetlejuice has been a mascot, not a movie character. That’s still the case, even if he is back on the big screen.

Tim Burton’s 1988 comedy “Beetlejuice” is a triumph of oddball comedy, a vivid and daring collision of over-the-top creature features and wry ’80s screwball gags. It works less as a story and more as an experience, thrusting a fully formed character — perfectly played by Michael Keaton in a career-best performance — into a chaotic world.

In the intervening years, the character and the film have become signifiers of lightly subversive spookiness. “Beetlejuice” became Halloween decor, Saturday-morning cartoons and theme-park shows. All the while, Burton and like-minded misfits were letting various ideas for a sequel marinate. Finally, nearly four decades later, the “ghost with the most” is back for another turn, as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” puts the bio-exorcist on a collision course with the Deetz family once again.

Does it work out? Sort of.

Inasmuch as it does, it’s a result of the cast and the aesthetics. Keaton slips effortlessly back into the character despite the long layoff; he’s funny, frantic and razor-sharp. Returning cast members Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara are game and dialed in. Newcomer Jenna Ortega, the nominal protagonist, rises to the challenge, as she has done routinely in horror and horror-adjacent properties.

And the signature, sickly colored style of the film is in full effect. In the real world, the Deetz mansion is dramatically draped in a mourning shroud; every corner of the afterlife, from a janitor’s closet to the pathways to eternity, are full of macabre design and delightful detail.

Unfortunately, that world and these performers are beholden to a plot that is at once overcooked and underthought. The film forwards a half-dozen or more plot strands: Lydia Deetz (Ryder) is hosting a paranormal talk show and being conned into marriage by a scheming manager (Justin Theroux); her daughter, Astrid (Ortega), is distant following the death of her father and seeking spiritual guidance; Delia Deetz (O’Hara) is mourning the death of her own husband and trying to parlay it into art-world glory; Beetlejuice is ducking the aggression of an undead ex (Monica Belucci); and an ill-defined afterlife cop (Willem Dafoe) is trying to arrest anyone and revive his movie career.

These plots do not come together, unless all the characters winding up in the same place for a series of sandworm ex machinas counts as cohesion.

That clunkiness would be forgivable if the comedy were more on point, but it’s a blend of tossed-aside half-quips and bizarrely specific references — such as an ending sequence that functions as a direct parody of “Carrie,” a movie that is a half-century-old and significantly less well-known today than “Beetlejuice” itself.

The film isn’t a total waste; the performances and the environment in which they exist are likely enough to justify the cost of a ticket, particularly for fans with deep nostalgia for the original film. But it must be counted as a missed opportunity. After 36 years, Burton and company didn’t try to make a film as good as its predecessor; they merely tried to imitate it. That may move merchandise, but it doesn’t make for a classic.

My Rating: 5/10

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is now playing in theaters.