Review: "THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2" is a Truly Disappointing Sequel

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 of 2022 (No. 1821) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Addams Family 2 (2021)
Running time:  93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
MPAA – PG for macabre and rude humor, violence and language
DIRECTORS:  Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon
WRITERS:  Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Ben Queen, and Susanna Fogel; from a story by Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit (based on the characters created by Charles Addams)
PRODUCERS:  Gail Berman, Alison O'Brien, Danielle Sterling, and Conrad Vernon
EDITOR:  Ryan Folsey
COMPOSERS: Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/FAMILY

Starring:  (voices) Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Javon “Wanna” Walton, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Conrad Vernon, Bill Hader, Wallace Shawn, Brian Sommer, Cherami Leigh, and Ted Evans

The Addams Family 2 is a 2021 computer-animated supernatural comedy from directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan.  The film is a sequel to the 2019 animated film, The Addams Family.  Both films are based on the characters created by The New Yorker cartoonist, the late Charles Addams (1912-1988).  The Addams Family 2 focuses on the Addams Family as take a road trip, during which a scientist pursues Wednesday.

The Addams Family 2 opens at a school science fair.  There, Wednesday Addams (Chloe Grace Moretz) presents her experiment, in which she uses DNA from her pet squid, Socrates, on her Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) to show how humans can be improved.  Wednesday is somewhat put off that her family:  father, Gomez Addams (Oscar Isaac); mother, Morticia (Charlize Theron); and her brother, Pugsley (Javon “Wanna” Walton) have decided to attend the science fair, which is sponsored by the Cyrus Strange Foundation.  Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader) himself appears at the fair as a 3D hologram, and he is instantly drawn to Wednesday experiment and hopes to recruit her to work for him.

Back at home, Gomez Addams worries that the children are drifting apart from him and Morticia.  He decides that a family vacation is just what is needed to keep the family together, so he declares that they are going on a road trip across the United States.  Uncle Fester, Thing (the sentient hand), and Lurch (the butler) join them on the vacation, with everyone packing into an huge, odd-looking camper.  Gomez even takes the family to Miami where he hopes Cousin Itt (Snoop Dogg) can help with the family dilemma.

There is a complication in these vacation plans, however.  Cyrus Strange is determined to have Wednesday, and sends a shady lawyer, Mr. Mustela (Wallace Shawn), and a brutish henchman, Pongo (Ted Evans) to trick Gomez and Morticia into believing that Wednesday might be Cyrus' child.  Wednesday is already having doubts about her connections to the Addams Family, so which family will she decide to choose, the Addams or Cyrus Strange?

Charles Addams' macabre cartoon characters first became “The Addams Family” in the former ABC television series, “The Addams Family” (1964-66).  I have been a fan of that series since I was a child.  As a child, I was also a fan of NBC's former Saturday morning cartoon series, “The Addams Family” (Hanna-Barbera, 1973).  That series depicts the Addams Family on a cross-country road trip, exploring the United States in their “Creepy Camper” that resembles their Victorian-style mansion home.  The Addams Family 2 is not a remake of that old cartoon series, but it does borrow a few elements from it.

The Addams Family 2019 was enough of a hit that producing a sequel probably seemed obvious to MGM, which holds the rights to produce Addams Family film and television series.  The end result is something that looks and feels like a sequel that was rushed into production.  The idea of Wednesday not being an Addams is a ridiculous plot.  I can certainly accept the notion of a precocious child wondering about her parentage and lineage.  However, if she is different from the rest of her family, it is because each member of the Addams Family is different from all others.  That is the point this film makes at end of the story, but we didn't need an entire mediocre movie to tell us that.  Raising questions about Wednesday's family is just a lame plot line.

So, it goes without saying that I did not like this film.  The Addams Family 2 ends up being the latest in a long line of pitiful Hollywood road trip movies.  I will say that the last 17 minutes of the film – before the end credits – are actually good.  It is the only time that the film has any real conflict, melodrama, or action, and what happens in these seventeen minutes is actually consequential to the both the Addams Family and a few other supporting characters.

The Addams Family 2019 is my favorite media adaptation of “The Addams Family” characters outside of the 1960s and 1970s.  It manages to be sweet, charming, heartwarming, and, of course, macabre – the way it should be.  I gave it a B+, but The Addams Family 2 bored the hell outta me until the last seventeen minutes.  I'm being generous giving it a C.

4 of 10
C

Wednesday, February 23, 2022


The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "The Addams Family" Gives the Middle Finger to Assimilation

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 1 of 2021 (No. 1739) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

The Addams Family (2019)

Running time:  86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)

MPAA – PG for macabre and suggestive humor, and some action.

DIRECTORS:  Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon

WRITERS:  Matt Lieberman; from a story by Matt Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja, and Conrad Vernon (based on the characters created by Charles Addams)

PRODUCERS:  Gail Berman, Alison O'Brien, Alex Schwartz, and Conrad Vernon

EDITORS:  Kevin Pavlovic and David Ian Salter

COMPOSERS: Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/FAMILY

Starring:  (voices) Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Allison Janney, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Tituss Burgess, Jenifer Lewis, Elsie Fisher, Conrad Vernon, and Pom Klementieff

The Addams Family is a 2019 computer-animated comedy from directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan.  The film is based on the characters created by The New Yorker cartoonist, the late Charles Addams (1912-1988).  The Addams Family the movie focuses on an eccentrically macabre family and their interactions with the denizens of a colorful, but bland suburb.

The Addams Family opens as Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) prepare to marry in front of their eccentric, odd, and weird family members.  However, the people of the local town despise the macabre nature of the happy couple and their family, and chase them away.  Luckily, the newlywed Morticia and Gomez and their companion, Thing (sentient hand), escape to New Jersey.  There, the trio finds two things.  The first is a home in an abandoned and decaying manor-style building that was once an asylum, and the second is a butler in the hulking Lurch (Conrad Vernon).

Thirteen years later, Morticia and Gomez have two children – a precocious and mordacious, Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz); and an explosives-loving son, Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard).  The family is in kind of a state of crisis.  Gomez struggles as he prepares Pugsley for his upcoming “Sabre Mazurka,” a rite of passage that every male Addams family member must pass.  Morticia struggles to keep Wednesday from wanting to experience the world outside the mansion, which includes the girl's desire to go to school.

Elsewhere, reality TV host, Margaux Needler (Allison Janney), is in the middle of building a perfect planned community that she is calling, “Assimilation.”  This is supposed to be the highlight of her television series' season finale.  However, when she discovers that the Addams' dilapidated home overlooks Assimilation, Margaux is determined to give their home an extreme makeover, whether they like it or not.  Meanwhile, many members of the Addams clan are gradually arriving in order to celebrate Pulley's big day.

I have been a fan of ABC's 1960s television series, “The Addams Family” (1964-66), since I was a child.  As a child, I was also a fan of NBC's Saturday morning cartoon series, “The Addams Family” (1973).  I have mixed feelings about Orion Pictures' two 1990s live-action films, The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993).  As an adult, I became a huge fan of the work of Charles Addams, especially of his delightfully macabre cartoons that featured the characters that would become known as “The Addams Family.”

The latest media iteration of these characters, the computer-animated The Addams Family, borrows elements from the Addams Family media that has come before it.  Here, the illustrative and graphic design of the characters and their world recall both Addams cartoons and the 1973 TV series, although I find the way this film's Morticia and Gomez look to be a little off-putting.  Overall, however, I find the look of this film visually appealing, and I think the Addams family's relatives are an interesting lot of inventively designed characters.

One thing that I think The Addams Family 2019 has over The Addams Family 1990s film franchise is that this animated film gets it right in the way it contrasts the Addams family against the outside world.  Charles Addams' best cartoons juxtaposed his creepy characters and their playfully insidious actions with the normal human world.  Much about the 1990s films was insular and did not send the family out into the normal world.  The second film did, at least, send Wednesday and Pugsley to summer camp, which is why I think the second film is much better than the first.

By sending the Addams down the mountain to meet their neighbors in this film, the filmmakers get to play with themes and ideas of individuality, conformity, acceptance, change, and family, which makes this movie more than just another cartoon romp featuring a bunch of strange characters.  Ultimately, The Addams Family 2019 emphasizes that a family can be made up of both different people and of people who live and act differently from the rest of the family.

This film's standout voice actor/character pairs are Chloe Grace Moretz as Wednesday and Allison Janney as Margaux Needler.  Nick Kroll delivers a killer turn as Uncle Fester, and Bette Midler takes what is a small role in Grandmama Addams and makes it feel like a major part.  Jenifer Lewis, with her commanding voice and delivery, turns Great Auntie Loom into a character that steals scenes.

The Addams Family 2019 is my favorite media adaptation of “The Addams Family” characters outside of the 1960s and 1970s.  I highly recommend this film to fans of the characters.  It does take a while for the film to get going – about 20 minutes into the story, but it manages to be sweet, charming, heartwarming, and, of course, macabre – the way it should be.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, November 8, 2020


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "Over the Hedge" is a Surprising Delight

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 107 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Over the Hedge (2006)
Running time: 90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG for some rude humor and mild comic action
DIRECTORS: Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick
WRITERS: Len Blum, Lorne Cameron and David Hoselton, and Karey Kirkpatrick with Chris Poche (based upon characters created by Michael Fry and T. Lewis)
PRODUCER: Bonnie Arnold
EDITOR: John K. Carr
COMPOSER: Rupert Gregson-Williams
SONGS: Ben Folds

ANIMATION/COMEDY/ACTION/FAMILY

Starring: (voices) Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Avril Lavigne, Omid Djalili, Sami Kirkpatrick, Shane Baumel, and Madison Davenport

The subject of this movie review is Over the Hedge, a 2006 computer-animated film from DreamWorks Animation. This action comedy is based upon the syndicated newspaper comic strip, Over the Hedge, created by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. The film focuses on a raccoon who uses his friends to help him repay a debt.

RJ (Bruce Willis) is an opportunistic raccoon, and his greed causes him to destroy the treasure trove of a dangerous bear named Vincent (Nick Nolte). Vincent gives RJ less than a week to replace his loot. Fortune leads RJ to a sprawling new suburban neighborhood, where he figures he can replace all of Vincent’s things (such as potato chips, a red wagon, a blue ice cooler, etc.).

Meanwhile, Verne (Gary Shandling), a turtle, and the woodland friends that make up his family: a hyperactive squirrel named Hammy (Steve Carell); a sassy, but low on self esteem skunk named Stella (Wanda Sykes); a melodramatic possum named Ozzie (William Shatner) and his daughter, Heather (Avril Lavigne); Lou & Penny (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara), a porcupine couple with three little ones, wake up from their long winter’s nap only to discover that a tall green thing has cropped up in the middle of their forest home. RJ arrives just in time to inform Verne and his group that the “thing” is actually a hedge, and over the hedge is the “gateway to the good life” – a neighborhood full of humans. Humans live to eat (where as the animals eat to live), and they have lots of food and lots of stuff, he tells them – stuff they can take for themselves.

Verne is suspicious and a little jealous of RJ’s assertive nature, but Verne’s woodland band is ready to follow the manipulative raccoon into the domain of their over-indulgent human neighbors. Verne believes that they have more to fear than to gain from humans, and he is right. Gladys (Allison Janney), the president of the neighborhood association, hires a murderous pest exterminator, Dwayne (Thomas Haden Church), to get rid or RJ, Verne, and the rest of the animals. Can RJ and Verne put aside their differences in time to save the group? Will RJ be able to replace Vincent’s things before he shows up to kill the poor raccoon?

Although there were times in DreamWorks Animation’s latest computer animated film, Over the Hedge, when I was sure the filmmakers were simply trying to make another middle of the road, easily digestible family film, there were many more times when I was shocked at how genuinely sly, witty, smart, and lightly subversive this cartoon movie is. The narrative takes the side of the group over the individual, in this case because the group survives best as a unit and not on the whims of an individual prone to always look out for number one. There’s lots of clever commentary on American consumerism and also on how much people waste, and class division comes up in the form of the woodland animals being poor people who are conservative and gather to live, while the humans over the hedge in suburbia are more about gathering things for status. The movie also takes several digs at junk food.

The quality of the computer animation in DreamWorks Animation’s films (produced by PDI) continues to improve with each film, and that’s evident in Over the Hedge. The texture of the animals’ fur, the reflective surfaces, and the sets (the neighborhood lawn grass is good enough to call attention to itself) are all quite impressive. The surface consistency looks more real; it’s as if the animals’ skins, fur, quills, etc are authentic and not rubber suits. Character movement, which took a leap forward for DreamWorks in last year’s Madagascar, improved here. RJ, Hammy, Ozzie & Heather, and the porcupine triplets move with such grace and fluidity. There is a subtlety to their facial expressions that gives a sincere feel to their emotional displays, and when combined with smooth physical movement, makes their performances feel genuine.

If Pixar (now officially owned by the Walt Disney Company, just a few weeks prior to this review) is like Disney in that the studio create animated feature films that focus on story and the art of animation, DreamWorks is like Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes in that it emphasizes broad comedy (sketch, slapstick, situation, etc.) of varying appeal to adults, and it stresses caricature and cartoon-style drawing in the design of its characters. PDI also goes for the “squash and stretch” animation that marked the work of cartoon short directors like Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, so in many ways DreamWorks’ computer animated films are like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, and Droopy cartoons.

While Over the Hedge occasionally drags in its first half, the voice acting comes together to strengthen both the film’s narrative and its message of family. The acting also makes for some surprisingly strong comedy. Bruce Willis, well known as an action movie hero, first came to fame in the romantic, detective comedy television series, “Moonlighting.” Audiences tend to forget his boyish charm and wit, his sharp sarcasm, and a sense of humor that make him a very good comic actor. It takes a bit of warming up, but he makes a great foil for Gary Shandling’s über-responsible family patriarch. Shandling also takes a bit of warming up to, but that’s true of most of the cast. The film’s writers play well to the actors’ strengths.

Who knew it was possible to get such excellent comedy out of the perception that William Shatner overacted in the original Star Trek TV series and films? Here, his penchant for over dramatizing or melodrama is turned into pure comedy gold. The writers also make good use of Wanda Sykes’ saucy personality and constant sarcasm, as well as her ability create characters that ingratiate themselves to others while still being a smart ass. By the end of the film, my favorite character by far was Steve Carell’s Hammy the squirrel. Carell can do manic, panic, and hyperactivity and can babble with the best. When combined with the superb character animation done on Hammy, Carell creates a memorable cartoon animal character – one worth seeing again.

Over the Hedge is also a good action comedy. The chase that closes its last act is almost as good as the kind of slam-bam showdowns in the Toy Story franchise and could rival a car chase in a Lethal Weapon movie. It’s this facility for action comedy and funny characters that makes Over the Hedge DreamWorks’ best non-Shrek film to date.

7 of 10
A-

Sunday, May 21, 2006

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