In 1973, Hanna-Barbera Productions developed an animated version of The Addams Family. The series, fitting the framework of the studio’s mystery team formula, featured the family traveling around the country in a motorized version of their old home. This cartoon was terrible. So you can imagine my hesitation with The Addams Family 2, the second animated film, being a road trip vacation movie.
It is with some relief to report that this iteration of Addams is not 70s Hanna-Barbera bad. It even has some marked improvements over the previous picture which settled for a simplified message of embracing unorthodoxy. All that being said, it’s a picture that still feels stuck in the first gear of safe animated adaptations.
The Outsider Adams
The premise starts off strong enough with Wednesday Addams having some doubts about her family. Well, more than usual. She has showcased a fantastic project for her school’s science fair that involves placing animal behaviors into human brains. Unfortunately, she feels her talents are squandered, both from her school that only awards participation and her family shows little interest.
Wednesday suspects that she may not be an Addams at all and there’s some evidence to support this. A revered scientist believes that Wednesday may have been his daughter and that there was a mix-up at the hospital. This aspect grows more concerning when Uncle Fester confesses there may possibly have been some confusion around Wednesday’s birth. Her parents, Gomez and Morticia are more than a little concerned by this revelation.
An Addams Family Vacation
Seeking to reconnect Wednesday with what it means to be an Addams, Gomez and Morticia decide on taking a summer road trip. The vacation is one of the various stops to find the darkest delights of absurdity. A stop by Niagara Falls is less for the sights and more for the fun of going over the falls in a barrel. A trip to the beach finds them indulging in faking a shark attack.
This aspect of favoring a summer vacation theme may seem out of the ordinary for The Addams Family. Indeed, it keeps up with the competition of Hotel Transylvania, which took the same route for its third entry. Yet, the traveling of the Addams isn’t too new of an idea as with the aforementioned animated series.
The episodic nature of these detours does allow for better opportunities for absurd humor and I’d be lying if I said none of them were that interesting. The Niagara Falls sequence has a bit of fun with Pugsley being manipulated with a voodoo doll into some gravity-defying antics. Wednesday is at one point forced into a princess pageant and uses this as a chance to reenact a scene from Carrie. She doesn’t go THAT far though, considering this film is clearly more aimed at the kids than the previous films.
More Addams Arcs
I was pretty pleased with how this film found more for the characters to do. Uncle Fester slowly goes through a transformation of an octopus with Wednesday’s experiment. He starts favoring water more often and grows some peculiar tentacles.
Pugsley is also just starting to discover girls and is hoping to maybe find some vacation romance. He seeks advice from Fester but hardly any of it seems to work. Perhaps he should have been seeking help from Cousin Itt. The little furry guy does seem to have a way with people, despite speaking in backward garbled language that apparently only the Addams can understand.
I also enjoyed watching some doubt and concern set in within Gomez and Morticia. Sure, they indulge in dark and depressing parts of life with glee, but matters of family are important to them. There’s a better parental angle better explored here when placed in more absurd situations involving monsters, mad scientists, and dark magic.
Common Comedy
The unfortunate aspect that lingers from the previous film is the safe and mundane humor. Far from the dark hilarity of Barry Sonnenfeld, there are some disappointingly easy avenues of comedy. Puns and pop culture references still litter the screen far more than the giddy for the grim, where the Addams feel only milder weirder than the silly cartoon world they occupy.
Consider how the film depicts Cousin Itt. Just as with the previous film, Itt is voiced by Snoop Dogg. His voice was pretty obvious if you listened and you’re even given an easy clue with his theme music being a Snoop Dogg song. The sequel features Itt having music connections and even has him drop the backward talk to just sing a Snoop Dogg song. The punchline here is that Itt is Snoop Dogg. Perhaps the cost a lot to hire and the film is milking the rapper for all of that smooth voice.
There’s a scene that perfectly sums up just how much the comedy stumbles. During the Grand Canyon sequence, Pugsley sets off a series of explosions to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The song, however, has been edited so that the last two notes of each section feature the iconic Addams Family finger snaps. It’s a kind of a clever idea but it just doesn’t work and feels weirdly off.
Stylized Animation
One area that hasn’t disappointed me is the animation style trying to replicate the comic style. From the oval-shaped head of Wednesday to the bulbous nose of Fester, there’s undeniably a uniqueness to the animation style. It’s easy enough to tell the characters apart from more than just their voices or personalities.
I particularly dug into the fun that is had with transforming Fester into a tentacle monster. The way his eyes become bigger and his hands free of fingers makes for a great monster transformation. The reactions by Gomez to this development are on point as well, commenting to put his tentacles in the fridge as seafood goes bad fast.
The climax of the film also features more wild transformations of characters. Mutant animals litter the screen as the Addams attempt to best a mad scientist and his dastardly experiments. There’s a weirdness that wasn’t there before which ends the film on a high note I wasn’t expecting.
Conclusion: The Addams Family 2
It’s a little more kooky and spooky but still not altogether ooky as a sequel more bearable than funny. While it’s certainly a slight step up from the previous film, the nagging and tiring aspects still remain. It begs the question of just how far The Addams Family can be in animation when their cold and pale hands are handcuffed to never get too dark.
It’s not that The Addams Family has to lean in harder to its grimmer humor by favoring heaps of blood and guts (though I certainly wouldn’t object). But would it kill this franchise to make some homicide or body horror gags? Without that extra bite, this toned-down family doesn’t generate much of a scream that makes you want to see ‘em.
What did you think of The Addams Family 2? Let us know in the comments below!
The Addams Family 2 was released in theaters and on VOD in the U.S. on October 1, 2021.
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