By: Lana K. Wilson-Combs
The beloved Addams Family are still creepy and kooky as ever in the wacky follow-up
“The Addams Family 2.” The movie tries hard to be as mysteriously entertaining as the 2019 original. For the most part it succeeds.
There are enough laugh out loud moments for kids of all ages to appreciate. However, you can’t overstate that nostalgia contributes to much of the enjoyment of “The Addams Family 2.”
This time around the “ooky” clan have some major family issues to sort through. It all starts when Wednesday (voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz, TV’s “BoJack Horseman”) becomes the talk of her class after debuting a science project that involves transferring the brain of her pet octopus into Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll, TV’s “Big Mouth”). It’s heady stuff for a kid and Wednesday is shocked that everyone in her class received a participation trophy. Clearly her presentation was better than all the rest.
Wednesday is so bothered by the turn of events that she shuns all her father Gomez’s (Oscar Isaac, “Dune”) feel good niceties. Sensing that the family is drifting further apart, Gomez and his wife Morticia (Charlize Theron, “F9: The Fast Saga”) decide to pack up the haunted camper and take Wednesday, Pugsley (Javon “Wanna” Walton, TV’s “Utopia”), Uncle Fester and Lurch (Conrad Vernon, “The Boss Baby”) on a trip of a lifetime across America that includes Death Valley--one of their favorite hotspots no doubt-- Miami, Texas, the Grand Canyon and beautiful Sausalito, California.
Their plans are interrupted by a pesky and unscrupulous lawyer named Rupert Strange (Wallace Shawn, TV’s “Young Sheldon”) who claims that Wednesday isn’t part of this family. He has sinister reasons for tricking her into believing otherwise and follows the Addams Family to prove his point.
The majority of “The Addams 2” centers around that plotline as well as the crazy characters leaving their comfort zone and freaking out the regular folk they encounter.
The big scene-stealer is the pimped out, shaggy, and hairy Cousin Itt who is played by a funny Snoop Dogg, TV’s “BMF”). Even Bette Midler brings a few laughs as the partygoing Grandma.
“The Addams Family 2” moves at a decent clip. My biggest complaint is that the film doesn’t feature the original Vic Mizzy theme song and instead offers a disappointing rap/hip-hop version of it.
Editor's Note: Be sure to catch my N2Entertainment.net movie talk segment on the Kitty O'Neal Show Fridays at 6:20 p.m. on radio station KFBK 93.1 FM and 1530 AM.
Watch This Trailer For
"THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2"
Lana K. Wilson-Combs is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), The American Film Institute (AFI), and a Nominating Committee Voting Member for the NAACP Image Awards.