Film Review: "The Addams Family 2" (2021).

"Unhappy to see you again." This is The Addams Family 2. This computer-animated supernatural black comedy road film co-directed by Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon, Laura Brousseau and Kevin Pavlovic, written by Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Ben Queen, and Susanna Fogel, and based on the characters created by Charles Addams. 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?

In mid October 2019, following the 2019 film's successful release, it was announced that a sequel to the film was scheduled for an October 22, 2021 theatrical release date, and that Tiernan and Vernon would return to direct the film. At the same time, most the original cast; Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler and Snoop Dogg, were confirmed to reprise their roles. However, Finn Wolfhard could not reprise his role due to his voice changing, so Javon Walton replaced him. Bill Hader, and Wallace Shawn rounded out the film's voice cast.

The film stars the voice talents of Isaac, Theron, Moretz, Kroll, Walton, Midler, Dogg, Hader, and Shawn. All the casting here, like the film itself, feels too marketing driven, and the latter is obviously an excuse for a bad hip-hop remix of the classic TV show theme song. However, the cast repeat some of the first film's favorite schtick without wearing out their welcome, and they sustain much more exuberance than a sequel might be expected to have.

Somehow, the new production fails to sustain the creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky and altogether ooky visual sweep that held the first film together. Though this sequel probably has more creative energy than its predecessor, the constant stream of one-liners and sight gags is very much hit or miss. Like the first of the Addams chronicles, this is an essentially lazy movie, too often settling for easy gags and special effects that don't come to any really funny point. If you haven't yet seen the first film, rent that instead, or, better yet, go pick up a volume of the original Addams cartoons. A few sparkling performances and funny moments save this from being a complete waste of time, but it's not a promising way to start the Halloween movie season. We are left with a decent cutesy film that expands the Addams' universe, but does little to help it progress towards something greater or new. The film's simplistic and episodic plot put a major dampener on what could have been a welcome breath of fresh air for family animation. It has monsters doing/saying weird things and humans acting like huge jerks but when that's all you've got for ninety-three minutes, the novelty quickly wears thin.

Simon says The Addams Family 2 receives:

Also, see my reviews for The Addams Family.