Spooky and ooky? Nope, this sequel is vapid and vacant
Film The Addams Family 2 PG cert, 93 mins ★★★★★ Dirs: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon; Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloé Grace Moretz, Javon Walton, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Bill Hader, Wallace Shawn (voices).
Creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, ooky: these are famously the five qualities all members of the Addams Family possess. Now here are some terms which describe the versions of them that appear in
The Addams Family 2: vapid, vacant, shoddily animated, stupefyingly unfunny, and generally unbearable to be around.
No one could dispute that this eerie clan of old-money eccentrics, created by the cartoonist Charles Addams in the 1930s, have had a good run. A 1950s sitcom, two full animated series and a brace of Tim Burton-esque live-action features in the early 1990s, is not a media portfolio to be sniffed at. But even more so than its already largely forgotten predecessor, released in 2019, this trial-by-cgi finds the premise running on the wispiest of fumes.
It’s hard to know where to start, not least because its makers clearly didn’t. They’ve opted for an almost wilfully unimaginative prologue in which eldest daughter Wednesday, voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz, wreaks havoc at her school science fair: she carries out some kind of brain fluid transfusion between Nick Kroll’s Uncle Fester and an octopus, and ghoulish antics ensue. In fact, “…and ghoulish antics ensue” turns out to be virtually the only move The Addams Family 2 has in its arsenal, although it does also come out with a staggeringly unappetising subplot about the ongoing efforts of Pugsley (Javon Walton) – who’s meant to be, what, nine years old? – to practice his chat-up technique on any girl who comes into range; his project during the caravanning holiday around which the film is structured, which has Fester, the kids, their shambling butler Lurch, the disembodied hand Thing, plus parents Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) – zig-zagging between various allAmerican locales at which ghoulish antics…well, you get the gist.
Cursory attempts have been made to put a contemporary spin on things, with jokes about social distancing and hand sanitiser: also Cousin Itt, the hairy one, is now a speedboat-driving rapper voiced by Snoop Dogg.
For a moment, I thought they’d also made Lurch gay, although a burly, lantern-jawed companion who keeps showing up throughout the film is in fact introduced as his “former cellmate”, and not, as I initially thought I’d heard, his former soulmate.