The Addams Family 2

The Addams Family 2
Starring Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll
Directed by Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

In general, movie sequels fare worse than their original counterparts, but for animated films, it's even more difficult to make lightning strike twice. Maybe it's due to the medium, but more often than not an animated sequel feels like it could've been an elongated episode of a show on television and doesn't move the story forward, but rather makes it feel soulless and a cash grab. "Toy Story 3" and "Shrek 2" are the rare anomaly, and "The Addams Family 2" falls unfortunately under the latter - a film that's soulless (which, I guess for a family of ghouls, could be a good thing) and pointless, merely serving as a quick cash grab of the surprise success of the original.

Wednesday Addams (Chloe Grace Moretz) enters a school science fair competition to showcase her invention - a procedure that transfers atributes of one creature to another, using it on her pet octopus and her Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll). Despite having the best presentation, she's angered to learn that there's no winner and everyone gets a participation trophy, but she does earn the attention of the science fair founder, Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader).

As Wednesday struggles with being appreciated and known, her brother Pugsley (Javon Walton) wants to find himself a girlfriend, and listens to the well-meaning but terrible advice from Uncle Fester. All this upsets patriarch Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and matriarch Morticia (Charlize Theron), who feel that their children are growing up and not wanting their presence anymore - so they plan to take the family on a cross country vacation. Along the way Wednesday learns some shocking truths about her childhood that threatens to break the family bond forever, as well as having the family come into contact with all sorts of hilarious situations and people.

"The Addams Family" has been in existence in one form or another since 1938, when it first appeared as a one-panel gag in The New Yorker magazine by Charles Addams (the family actually didn't have names until the 1964 television adaptation, adopting the last name Addams for their creator). The ooky, spooky family has been in magazines, television shows, movies, and even Broadway, but it seemed that the family dissolved after the 1993 film "Addams Family Values." Then, in 2019, an animated film was released and became a surprise hit, so if course a sequel was greenlit immediately and was supposed to be released in 2020, but due to the pandemic it was moved to this year. It's obvious that this sequel was meant to solely draw in audiences once again to a well-known franchise, as it doesn't offer anything new or exciting and felt totally rushed (even the live-action sequel got a proper title, this was just "The Addams Family 2").

The film seems so rushed that I'm not even sure the voice actors had a moment to rest between projects, but just remained in the studio while the writers threw ideas at a wall and wrote something barely cohesive. You can tell that the voice actors are there solely for a paycheck and don't really showcase enough emotion to the project to make it anything more than something to put on at home while you do chores and allow the little ones to gaze at the amazing colors. It's that story we've all seen before - family is slowly fracturing so they go on one big family vacation together to try to salvage what's left, only to discover that their differences could make them irrevocably separate, before of course attaining that happy ending you've come to expect.

The best part of the film is the fact that it centers on Wednesday, who's easily the most enjoyable person in the family. Chloe Grace Moretz gives her the traditional deadpan humor that's filled with zingy one-liners and self-defecating humor you'd come to expect from the quirky character, but again it's one of those sequels that focuses on a secondary character (much like Mater in "Cars 2") that didn't need to be made in the first place. Littered throughout Wednesday's story is different subplots that feel like elongated episodes - from Pugsley's search for love to Cousin It's arrival and Grandmama Addams's house party, they all feel like afterthoughts to pad on a runtime to make it acceptable for the big screen. While the humor hits more often than not, it doesn't linger in your memory like other family comedies do, resulting in a subpar film that's neither great to be remembered or terrible to not be forgotten - it just sits in the comfortable middle, and easily forgettable.

They may be creepy and kooky, but something got lost in the translation, leading to "The Addams Family 2" to be an unintentional soulless endeavor filled with funny-enough humor to be remembered for the moment but forgotten shortly after, a film that proves once again some movies should never have sequels.

The Score: C