Toning IT down
New Addams family sequel isn’t creepy or kooky enough to live up to its iconic characters
IN a world of bland conformity, the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky characters from Charles Addams’ newspaper cartoon strips proudly stand out from the crowd with their lip-smackingly macabre predilections.
“Being different is the most Addamsy thing,” observes morose teenager Wednesday Addams (voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz) in this computer-animated sequel.
Ironically, The Addams Family 2 is more conventional than its lacklustre predecessor, recycling plot elements from the second and third chapters of the Hotel Transylvania franchise to cram the titular clan into a camper van (driven by Thing) for a ramshackle excursion designed to strengthen family unity.
Wednesday enters a national science fair with her homemade serum, which transplants personality traits between species.
The morose teenager injects Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) with a cocktail derived from her highly intelligent pet octopus Socrates to demonstrate the effectiveness of her invention.
Scientist Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader), who sponsors the fair, fixates on Wednesday’s chemical formula.
“Alas, I can’t share it,” she informs him coldly. “It’s a family secret.”
Soon after, a lawyer approaches her parents Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) for a sample of Wednesday’s DNA.
The advocate claims the enfant terrible was switched in the maternity ward with another child.
Gomez is devastated at the prospect of losing his little girl and hurriedly organises a family holiday from Salem, site of the 17thcentury witch trials, to Death Valley via Sleepy Hollow.
FAMILY TRIP:
“This trip will bring the Addams family closer than ever before!” gushes Gomez.
“Or there will be no survivors,” deadpans Wednesday.
En route, Wednesday repeatedly shuns her father’s affection and Cousin It (Snoop Dogg) shares cryptic parenting advice (“Children are like socks in the laundry. They need to be lost before they can be found”).
The script incorporates a couple of references to the turmoil of the past 20 months. Thing slathers digits with hand sanitiser and Wednesday justifies her aversion to hugs, saying “I’ve been social distancing since birth”.
The Addams Family 2 is a marginal improvement on the original but the bar was set low enough to trouble the most flexible limbo dancer.
Plot machinations involving Wednesday’s bloodline are contrived and there’s no palpable emotional payoff to the on-screen angst.
A bizarre musical interlude involving Lurch belting out Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem I Will Survive in a biker bar is the closest thing the sequel comes to genuine craziness. We are neither afraid nor petrified.