Everyone’s favo­urite spooky family is back, this time on the big screen. The sequel to the 2019 animated film, The Addams Family 2 is as hilarious as the first instalment and as weird as themselves.

If you haven’t met them yet, you might be living under a rock, for Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Grandmama Addams and Lurch have been household characters for decades, and live in an abandoned asylum on a hill. If the previous film had its ‘residence’ as the epi-centre, the sequel spans across various parts of America.

The animated film begins when Wednesday Addams displays her strange creation at a science fair. She displays a way of transferring attributes of an animal successfully into a human; Uncle Fester being the test subject.

Though the rest of the family ruins the event with their presence, Wednesday and her work is noticed by the tech wizard Dr Cyrus Strange. The doctor wants the ‘technology’ and cracks a plan to obtain it. He sends a lawyer to get what he wants, just when the family was busy with a problem of their own.

The weird parents were aware of the strange behaviour of their daughter and planned a road trip to bring the family close. Wednesday, who had doubts regarding her parentage, overhears a story of being swapped at birth. She is at her deadliest throughout the animated film where weirder things happen.

The road trip turns out to be more of a cat and mouse chase. With Mustela and his Man Friday ‘Pongo’ in pursuit, the change of plan makes the trip more interesting. The ritual humiliation of little Pugsley was there, but the trip had a touch of whacky rides in an ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ style.

Oscar Issac (Star Wars), Charlize Theron (Snow White and the Huntsman), Chloe Grace Moritz (Jack and the Beanstalk), return as the voices of the immediate family, while Javon Walton replaces Finn Wolfhard as Pugsley’s voice. Chloe Grace Moritz’s voice acting was outstanding as she makes you fall in love with the dull offspring and gets away with the cake.

Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon (Shrek), the film has many funny moments, Pugsley blasting the Grand Canyon and Wednesday being forced to enter a beauty contest was laughable, but the fight scene between Lurch and Pongo is the cutest of them all.

Sometimes the jokes become as weird as the family itself and end on the dark side. The Addams Family might have been unable to pass some quality time together, but the 93-minute ride surely is something a family can watch and enjoy together.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 20th, 2021