“Addams Family 2” review: a movie the whole family can miss

We often talk about how the best animated films operate on two levels, with brilliant visuals and silly humor and uplifting messages and catchy tunes to keep the little ones entertained, along with visual references or the occasional visual reference. that are sure to fly over the kids. heads while scoring with adults in the audience.

The flat, uninspired “Addams Family 2” isn’t the right kind of “twofer,” in that it’s often too dark and grotesque and weird for kids, but also deeply not funny when trying to please. adults. As much as I would like to say that this is a movie that the whole family can enjoy, rather it is a movie that the whole family can ignore completely.

Originally created by Charles Addams in 1938 for a cartoon series in The New Yorker, The Addams Family was adapted for a cult TV series in the mid-1960s, a number of animated TV shows, a pair of well-executed live action movies. in the 1990s a Broadway musical and more recently the mediocre animated feature “The Addams Family” in 2019 and now that equally underwhelming sequel, which features a tired plot, just decent visuals, a storyline filled with puns and the comeback of Snoop Dogg is playing Cousin Itt as a cool rapper – and that last element is even scarier than it looks.

“Addams Family 2” kicks off with Wednesday Addams (Chloe Grace Moretz) yearning to distance herself from her helicopter parents, while her little brother Pugsley (Javon Walton) has discovered girls and takes courtship lessons with the spooky Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll). Sensing the hustle and bustle of the kids, Gomez (Oscar Isaac, sounding to the world as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) suggest a road trip across the country, and why not call this movie “Addams Family Vacation “instead of” Addams Family 2? “

In any event. There are plenty of burlesque pranks, and exchanges like this, at dinner, as the adults wait for the children to arrive:

Morticia: “Please, Uncle Fester, wait for the children. “

Uncle Fester: “Children? I thought we were eating chicken!

But these people aren’t cannibals, so that’s no use – ah, what’s the point.

The main storyline has Bill Hader voicing a mad scientist called Cyrus Strange, who planted the idea in Wednesday’s head that she’s not Gomez and Morticia’s biological daughter – and it resonates with Wednesday, seeing how she is bright, serious and austere, while the rest of the family is so upbeat and cheerful and also a little bit silly. The Addams clan cross the country in a tricked steampunk VR, with Thing (a disembodied hand) at the wheel, wearing a fitness watch (ha ha) while the filmmakers use overplayed pop hits like ‘Jump Around’ in an attempt to inject energy in slapstick bits, and Gomez-ordered jokes that cousin Itt is in Florida for spring break and cracking up, “Ghouls Gone Wild, am I right?” We’re even submissive to Lurch singing “I Will Survive” in a falsetto voice in a biker bar, Lord, help us all. (On another occasion, Gomez observes, “Billie Eilish is a little too sunny for my liking, but I’m still a fan.” It’s like the script was written by software invoking random pop culture references. .)

Oddly enough, “Addams Family 2” has a grand finale that isn’t all that different from the climax of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” in that two giant mutant creatures are fighting and we don’t care.