The Addams Family 2 Review

The Addams Family is back again, in a follow-up to their 2019 animated reboot. The 2019 movie was an uneven affair, but it provided some fun moments for younger audiences. I feel like The Addams Family 2 can be described in pretty much the same way. It’s a cute, uneventful yet inoffensive animated film that may provide some entertainment for its target audience, though the older crowd definitely shouldn’t expect to be equally entertained, as they would be with the better animated offerings of today.

The story here is that the Addams parents, Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron), feel that their children Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Pugsly (Javon Walton) are drifting apart from them. So to grow closer as a family, they decide to have an Addams Family road trip, with Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) and butler Lurch (Conrad Vernon) in tow. So it’s a similar setup to the recent The Mitchells vs. the Machines, though unfortunately it can’t hope to reach those heights.

An additional dilemma occurs, however, when a lawyer (Wallace Shawn) shows up at the Addamses’ door just as they’re about to leave, and informs Gomez and Morticia that Wednesday may not be their biological daughter, as she may have been switched with another baby at birth. Morticia and Gomez write off the lawyer’s claims at first, but grow suspicious once Uncle Fester reveals that, on the night of Wednesday’s birth, he accidentally scared the babies in the hospital when visiting his niece, so he juggled all the babies to calm them down. He thinks he put all the babies back in the proper place. Okay, that’s funny. That’s the kind of humor I expect from the Addams Family.

Sadly, that humor becomes less frequent as the movie goes on. Besides having the lawyer on their tail (he needs a DNA test, but Morticia and Gomez are determined to avoid him), the movie has a number of sub-plots: due to one of Wednesday’s science experiments, Uncle Fester is developing squid-like properties; Grandmama Addams (Bette Midler) stays at home to housesit and throw wild parties; Pugsley turns to Uncle Fester for advice on how to attract girls; and Cousin Itt (whose gibberish voice is provided by an electronically sped-up Snoop Dogg) shows up during the trip to… show up, really.

A persistent issue with these Addams Family movies (even going back to the live-action adaptations from the 90s) is that they feel the need to add so much story and plot, but play out more like a disconnected series of jokes. The Addams Family is at its best when it’s just the simple idea of this weird, creepy family interacting with “normal” people. Just lean into that and embrace those jokes, instead of trying to tie them together with so much plot. The family road trip was all the story this movie needed, did we really have to add the bigger issue of Wednesday’s parentage on top of that (and is it just me, or is Wednesday the Addams who always gets the spotlight)? If The Addams Family 2 were simply about the individual moments of the family’s road trip, and the hijinks therein, this may have been a really fun comedy.

Instead it’s only a so-so movie. The Addams Family 2, like its predecessor, seems to be aimed at introducing these characters to younger audiences, and that’s fine. A plus to that is it means, at its worst, the movie is simply unmemorable, as opposed to something offensively bad. Still, given the heights animated family films continue to reach in recent times, you can’t help but wish for more. I’m not expecting an animated classic here, but I think an animated Addams Family movie could produce a legitimately good comedy if given the effort. Sadly, I’m still waiting.

The Addams Family 2 has fun animation and a strong voice cast, which also includes Bill Hader as an eccentric scientist (particular praise goes to Isaac, Theron, and Moretz). But the writing falls a bit flat, and only a few of the jokes really land. You can’t help but feel these Addams Family movies are missed opportunities.

Still, it could be worse. It’s merely The Addams Family 2. Not The Addams Family: Let There be Carnage.

5