“I have worldwide access!”

Does that sound like a funny sentence? Of course not. What else in human history and airport lines could be funny about global accession?

But put it in the mouth of comedy goddess Catherine O’Hara, and place it in the wildly inventive world of Tim Burton and those crazy waiting room for the afterlife from “Beetlejuice”, and it could be the one blessed moment in your life when you will ever laugh at your participation in the world.

It probably won’t be the only thing you’ll laugh at. Burton is back — and more importantly, he’s BACK — with “Beetle juice Beetle juice,” 36 years after the original. And for once, the question “Why a sequel?” is irrelevant.

Not because we know the answer. (Do we?) But, who cares? It’s funny. It might even make you feel better about, well, death, even if it’s not “dead dead.” And Michael Keaton somehow looks exactly the same as he did in 1988 (honestly, it helps that his character was already dead.)

Returning to his story of Keaton’s ghostly, diabolical “bio-exorcist,” director Burton brings back much of the team behind the original, including, in addition to O’Hara and Keaton, the still-lovely Winona Ryder as Lydia the Goth Girl (as well as Bob, the man with the shrunken head).

And we’ve got Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, and for the younger generation, Jenna Ortega. As a relatively normal character, she serves as an appealing anchor, her story moving the plot forward.

Speaking of plot, if you haven’t seen the original, don’t worry. It’s all explained (as much as it should be) in due time. We start in Winter River, Connecticut, still home to Lydia Deetz (Ryder), who moved to her new home as a teenager with crazy stepmother Delia and father Charles, only to find her new home haunted by the recently deceased Adam and Barbara (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, sadly not returning).

Lydia looks much the same — dressed all in black, with spiky bangs and pale skin — but is now a widow, a paranormal facilitator and the host of a low-budget reality show, “Ghost House,” in which she sees ghosts and wonders, “Can the living and the dead coexist?”

But one day, she sees something in the audience that scares her: visions of Beetlejuice, who caused chaos as a teenager and who, when we last left him, was languishing in the waiting room of the afterlife (apparently HE didn’t have global access).

Near the set, her manager and friend Rory (Theroux) is ready to comfort Lydia after this terrifying vision. Rory has a small ponytail that is almost as sexy as he is.

Lydia then receives a disturbing message from Delia (O’Hara), an artist of questionable talent and unassailable ego, who is setting up a gallery show in which she is the canvas. There, Delia tells Lydia that she has lost Charles. “Is he going to divorce you?” Lydia gasps. “What a horrible thought!” Delia replies. “No, he’s dead.” (Such phrases are catnip to O’Hara, a genius of comic timing.)

Lydia calls her daughter, Astrid (Ortega), at boarding school. Astrid lists Lydia in her contacts as “Assumed Mother,” which tells you much of what you need to know about their strained relationship.

But let’s pause for a moment with this tale of the living, because we need to catch you up on the dead. Where Beetlejuice is trapped, where the dead live—but not the “dead dead”—Delores, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, has escaped from the crates (emphasis on the plural) that her body has been in. Watching the glamorous Bellucci literally stitch herself together is just one of the gloriously creative moments Burton and crew give us here. Sadly, Delores doesn’t have much else to do, but this is pretty spectacular.

We’re getting into spoiler territory, so let’s just say things get really complicated when Astrid goes to Winter River for her father’s funeral. There, she witnesses her mother accept a marriage proposal from the slimy Rory. Astrid runs away to escape and runs into a handsome young man reading Dostoevsky.

A relationship is born, which will lead to unexpected chaos. Let’s just say Lydia will have to call on — gasp! — Beetlejuice, who will demand a terrifying price for his services, as he often does.

And he doesn’t show up too early. Keaton, with his white, clumpy makeup and blackened eyes and hair that looks as if he’s constantly sticking his hand into an electrical socket in the wall, slides remarkably smoothly into his old role. “The juice is loose,” as he likes to say.

But you know who else is driving the pace? Burton. It’s his inimitable energy that permeates this film — a jauntily rendered sequel that sometimes makes sense, sometimes doesn’t, but just keeps on fooling around. One of the ridiculous delights along the way: an afterlife “soul train,” which isn’t just literally a train of souls but a replica of the variety show “Soul Train,” with people in Afros dancing their way to wherever they’re going.

And if we don’t have the original’s lip-synching version of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” we do have a lip-synching version of “MacArthur Park,” the Donna Summer version. “Somebody left the cake out in the rain,” go the ridiculous words of the disco classic. “I don’t think I could handle it ’cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again.”

In the spirit of Burton, let’s just say it took a long time to bake, yes, but the director has recovered the recipe — at least enough to keep us laughing, snickering, even roaring with laughter for 104 minutes. And we can be glad he did.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association “for violent content, macabre and gory images, strong language, suggestive material and brief drug use.” Running time: 104 minutes. Three out of four stars.