The Addams Family 2 movie review: animated sequel targeting children again lacks the morbid wit of the original cartoon

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 computer-animated incarnation of the family, who debuted as a cartoon strip in the 1930s, began in 2019 with an uninspired outing that was desperately lacking a plot. This sequel, again co-directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, at least has a coherent storyline, although it suffers from many of the pitfalls of the first movie.

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.

Mum Morticia and dad Gomez try to get her back with the help of the festering Uncle Fester, the Frankenstein-like Lurch, and young son Pugsley, whose bad manners and penchant for arson are interfering with his boyish attempts at romance.

The animation is disappointing, with both character design and scene design being pedestrian at best.

Computerised 3D animation, once looked down on by animation buffs as clumsy and crude, came of age during the last decade – even the purist Studio Ghibli released one – and it’s hard to understand why the directors show such little flair here, especially as they directed the mind-blowing Sausage Party.

Only a scene where Wednesday is forced to dress up like a Southern Belle for a talent show demonstrates the hoped-for imagination. Some of the characters, such as a young girl who acts like a pig and a woman who looks like a wizened old bird, are unsavoury and unpleasant to watch.

It’s not unusual for animated filmmakers to try to appeal to young kids by flagrantly appropriating the music of the times, but The Addams Family 2’s continual use of rap bears no relevance to the Addams concept, and completely destroys the limited moody atmosphere that the filmmakers have built up.

A top voice cast including Oscar Isaac (as Gomez), Charlize Theron (as Morticia) and the legendary Bette Midler (as Grandma) deserve better.

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