When news broke about a second animated “Addams Family” movie, a wave of childlike excitement washed over me. The prospect of reviewing it, mirroring my coverage of the first film, felt like a significant full-circle moment in my journey as a critic.
However, upon viewing “Addams Family 2,” I was left wanting significantly more. It’s not that I vehemently disliked it, as some did, but maintaining a sense of enjoyment throughout the viewing required genuine effort, which, in itself, speaks volumes. I walked away from this latest installment with a distinct feeling of melancholy.
My primary issue surfaced the instant my once-beloved character, Pugsley, began to speak. It became jarringly apparent that Pugsley had been recast. To put it mildly, the change was disconcerting; to be blunt, it was simply awful.
In the original movie, Pugsley embodied the quintessential “fun idiot” – providing comedic relief and unexpectedly stepping up as a hero. In “Addams Family 2,” seemingly to mitigate the noticeable difference in voice and the recasting, Pugsley’s dialogue was dramatically reduced. He spent much of his screen time as a passive figure, essentially a rag doll, devoid of meaningful action.
This unfortunate decision meant that the burden of comedic relief fell upon characters not originally intended for such a role, and consequently, they felt out of character. This became a significant pet peeve. Despite this major misstep, there were fleeting moments within the film that I did appreciate.
One such instance was a brief yet endearing scene where Wednesday and Lurch formed an unlikely alliance during Wednesday’s quest for self-discovery. While intended to simply develop their relationship, this moment inadvertently became an escape from the overall movie’s shortcomings. It served its purpose well enough to prevent me from completely abandoning hope for the film at that point.
Thankfully, this wasn’t the sole redeeming quality. A recurring joke involving a couple whose engagement attempts were consistently thwarted by the Addams family’s chaotic antics did elicit genuine chuckles. Its off-beat nature prevented it from being uproariously funny, but it was chuckle-worthy nonetheless.
However, these isolated moments of humor couldn’t salvage the film from its broader failings. The aforementioned attempts at humor often felt predictable and failed to truly land. This wasn’t merely my personal observation. Watching in a theater filled with children, I noted a distinct absence of childlike laughter throughout the majority of the film’s hour and a half runtime.
Further underscoring the film’s disconnect with its target audience, the plot proved overly convoluted and layered. It juggled storylines involving a scientist, familial drama, a mistaken identity/switch-at-birth scare, DNA tests, and journeys of self-discovery. It was undeniably excessive.
The filmmakers’ intentions seemed clear: to mature the plot, amplify the humor, and introduce new characters. However, the misstep lay in the fact that the plot didn’t require increased maturity. The original film already possessed humor, and with a plethora of new characters introduced in the first movie, audience expectation leaned towards character recurrence and development, not further expansion.
The gap between “Addams Family” movies wasn’t the extensive six-year period separating “Frozen” and “Frozen II.” After a mere two years, a drastic thematic shift from ‘Be yourself’ to… whatever the message of “Addams Family 2” was supposed to be… felt unwarranted and unclear.
Adding to the sense of something missing, Margaux, the former antagonist-turned-family-ally from the first film, who had seemingly developed a budding relationship with Uncle Fester, was conspicuously absent. Parker, Wednesday’s friend from the first movie, was also nowhere to be seen.
In conclusion, while I can’t bring myself to outright condemn “Addams Family 2,” it’s evident that a multitude of ideas became muddled in the film’s execution.
