Review | The Addams Family 2 movie review: animated sequel targeting children again lacks the morbid wit of the original cartoon
- A top voice cast including Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron and the legendary Bette Midler deserve better than this poor sequel to 2019’s equally uninspired outing
- The Addams Family 2’s use of rap destroys the limited moody atmosphere that the filmmakers have built up, and both character and scene design are pedestrian
2/5 stars
Although it’s a bit better than its predecessor, this second computer-animated update of the merrily macabre Addams Family still doesn’t deliver on its ghoulish promise. The humour is lame, and the spooky bunch are mere shadows of their former selves.
An attempt to snag the interest of younger viewers by a heavy reliance on rap music – Snoop Dogg plays a newly invented rapper uncle – clashes badly with the Addams’ retro-goth chic, and a target audience of children and young teens means that their morbid wit has again been jettisoned for pratfalls and buffoonery.
The Addams Family, a ghoulish bunch who revel in everything doomy, deadly and murderous, decide to take a holiday to gloomy US locations like Salem and Sleepy Hollow. But along the way, a mad professor abducts Wednesday (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz, channelling Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice), the super-Goth teenage girl of the family, claiming that he is her real father.