‘The Addams Family 2’ Review
PG: For macabre and rude humor, violence and language
Runtime: 1 Hr and 32 Minutes
Production Companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bron Animation, Creative Wealth Media, Cinesite Studios
Distributor: United Artists Releasing
Directors: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon
Writers: Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Ben Queen, Susanna Fogel
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll, Javon Walton, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Bill Hader
Release Date: October 1, 2021
In Theaters and VOD
Morticia and Gomez are distraught that their children are growing up, skipping family dinners, and totally consumed with “scream time.” To reclaim their bond they decide to cram Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, and the crew into their haunted camper and hit the road for one last miserable family vacation. Their adventure across America takes them out of their element and into hilarious run-ins with their iconic cousin, IT, as well as many new kooky characters. What could possibly go wrong?
When Cinesite’s animated feature iteration of The Addams Family came out in 2019, I was pretty lukewarm towards it. It features great designs for the iconic family, the voice cast’s lively performances, and a good number of the jokes are pretty funny, but the film is undermined by an incoherent sitcom-like story that feels like various vignettes more than anything else. With The Addams Family 2, the new team of writers makes this sequel’s story more streamlined and narratively tighter. Though the road trip premise is pretty basic and creatively trite, especially with how much it’s been popping up in family films these days, it actually allows The Addams family to be all together for the entire film. So instead of it feeling like a loose set of episodic plotlines being held together, there’s a coherent story at play here.
Once again – because I guess she’s the best character for anyone to write narratives about – the film’s story primarily centers around Wednesday Addams who has been feeling pretty out of place in her family lately. Morticia and Gomez are overbearing with love and support for her and she ain’t with it at all. So Gomez comes up with a plan to take the family out of New Jersey where they reside and across the country in their gothic family RV. Meanwhile, on their trip, they’re followed around by a lawyer and his brute henchmen who bring news that Wednesday Addams might not be an Addams at all.
While a lot of the jokes from the predecessor ranged from mildly amusing to full-on cringe, there’s a major improvement this time around. Though there are one too many writers, as opposed to the singular vision of Matt Lieberman who penned the predecessor, the script has a better understanding of the family and their functionality. While there are visual gags galore, the film delivers funny dialogue based on the characters’ characteristics and their individual dynamics between each other. It’s funnier than the first due to the film exploring how each member interacts with both each other and the world itself. Even from the get-go, the film ups the passionate love and horniness Morticia and Gomez share for each other, and right then and there, it captures the essence of Charles Addams’s characters more than the previous film.
The returning voice cast brings lively performances to their designated roles that nail the spirit of the characters they portray and match the frantic energy of the film. Since the story pits Gomez and Wednesday against each other, their voice actors get the most material and heft for the film. Oscar Isaac’s Gomez is given more screen time, and the majority of the film’s humor that worked for me, stemmed from him and his line delivery. He’s full of manic dad energy that you can’t help but adore him. Plus, the fact that it’s Oscar Isaac behind the character just furthers that even in animated form – he never half-asses a performance. There’s a moment where he has to do an over-the-top country accent and I heavily guffawed. Since this is Wednesday’s movie more than anyone else’s, it gives Chloe Grace Moretz another opportunity to steal the show again, and she does. She confidently balances Wednesday’s deadpan and macabre sense of humor and genuine moments of vulnerability and emotions. A new addition to the cast is Javon Walton, who replaces Finn Wolfhard as Pugsly. In all honesty, it’s a great replacement. One of my criticisms from the last film is how odd and miscast he sounded because his deep voice makes this middle school kid sound like a college student. Now that you have Walton who is a kid voicing him, it’s welcomed and not out of place at all.
Animation-wise, there isn’t much of a technical upgrade from the last film as far as quality goes, but I was enamored by the level of effort put into the production design and art direction. Since you have the Addams traveling all across the country, they visit various landmarks and cities to ensue some hijinks. While many might perceive them as a means to deliver Charles Addams’s branded gags, it’s a cool way of seeing the family inhabit the world itself. They travel to places such as the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and Miami, and the background artists and animators do a great job recreating the architecture of these various locations in a faithful manner, all while personalizing it to their animated world. They even add variety to the color palette and lighting to make the world they inhabit similar to our own. It’s a good way to expand on the first film’s notion of exploring how the Addams’s function in this 21st-century world, and it accomplishes that through that aspect.
Cinesite Animation is quickly becoming the Blumhouse of animation studios, where they can make a movie on the cheap, recoup that money and then some rather quickly, and do the same with future projects without having the need to up their quality. A ton of criticisms I personally had towards the animation in the predecessor film, unfortunately, still applies here. You have The Addams Family who, from a character design basis, is completely attuned to the Charles Addams designs. Meanwhile, the background characters outside of them all look like knock-off Miis that are cut from the same cloth in terms of simplistic features and shape. All of the non-Addams character models look so bland, generic, and lifeless. Even the film’s primary antagonist (voiced by Bill Hader) falls short from visually standing out as well. The lawyer who follows the family has a better and more distinct unique design than him. The fact that, from a visual standpoint, the Addams’s are venturing across the country where everyone outside of them looks just about the same makes it look so lazy. It makes it worse when great, diverse set pieces are crafted, but there’s a lack of effort in the background department, so it comes off feeling more half-assed than it deserves to be. The production designers poured their hearts and souls into expanding the scope of these sequels, making these locations come to life and add character to their world, while everyone who populates it looks like they were just copied and pasted with a randomizer machine.
To further on this notion, because it bothers me so much, there’s a random Progressive product placement used as a joke in the film. It’s the only product placement the movie has, which is pretty weird but I digress, it’s far from Illumination or Transformers level of egregious. So, naturally, I looked up if there was a cross-promotion commercial for the film, and there is. And guess what?! The character design used for Flo and her team is far more stylized than every background character the Addams’s encounters on their trip. Their designs set them apart from the family, while being unique in their own right. Why couldn’t that be applied to this movie?! I get that you save money in the budget if you reuse assets, but man, it comes off still looking so bland and generic. They already did it with a commercial! There’s a moment during the film where I muttered, “You know what? They might be cutting corners in order to have an insane, action-packed, high-quality climax that clearly shows where the money went to.” Not gonna lie, the climax is pretty cool, but regardless of that, I wish the film strived for a higher level of quality overall as much as it does in various other areas.
As much as I appreciate this sequel being more narratively cohesive, and showcasing the Addams’s as a stronger unit, the film suffers from being a redundant road trip comedy that’s pretty cliched to the format. The family travels from set piece to set piece wreaking havoc and it gets repetitive more so than it does creative. While some ideas are funny in concept – what would happen if Gomez went barrel rolling in Niagara Falls or if Wednesday had to be put into a beauty contest – but middling in execution. As the film progresses, the set pieces get pretty redundant and cliched to a point that you feel that it’s taking from the National Lampoon playbook. The film’s humor walks an inconsistent line of playing it too safe and getting dark and violent, all while trying to have its cake, with sprinkles of modern references that quickly become dated, and eating it too. Granted, it does strike laughs ever so often, but it gets so narratively rote, you can’t help but feel there are better stories and ideas that can be applied to The Addams Family. Taking them on a road trip is a bland choice and the film’s execution is pretty middle of the road.
If you were a fan of the predecessor, The Addams Family 2 is more of the same in terms of writing quality and animation, but only makes minor improvements to get closer to Charles Addams’s spirit – something it’s still far from achieving. Thankfully, this film is going to be available on-demand when it's released because it’s the definition of a rental. It’s fun a Friday night viewing for the family but it’s nothing worth seeing on the big screen.
