Making roadkill in family togetherness.
The Addams Family 2 is a 2021 animated comedy film, a standalone sequel to 2019's The Addams Family. Most of the main cast returns to reprise their roles, save for Finn Wolfhard, who is replaced by Javon Walton (Euphoria) as Pugsley. Bill Hader and Wallace Shawn join the cast.
Fearing their children are drifting apart from them, Gomez and Morticia plan a cross-country family vacation to bond with their kids. Meanwhile, renowned mad scientist Cyrus Strange tries to convince Wednesday that she is his biological daughter, and therefore not an Addams.
The film released simultaneously in theaters and on digital retailers (due to the COVID-19 Pandemic) on October 1, 2021.
This film provides examples of:
- Abusive Parent: Cyrus is dismissive of Ophelia, seemingly because she's unintelligent and turns out to not be his biological daughter. Except worse, as she's a result of his animal-human hybrid experiments, and just a prop to manipulate Wednesday into revealing her secrets.
- Actor Allusion: Wednesday dumps buckets of red liquid (paint, not blood) onto some girls during a beauty pageant.
- Animorphism: When Pugsley and Ophelia were pigging out on treats together and the latter telling him she was from the farm, she suddenly morphs into an actual pig whilst she was eating, scaring Pugsley. It was revealed that Ophelia and Cyrus’ wife (who was revealed to be a flamingo) were originally animals but changed with human traits.
- Bad Guy Bar: Wednesday and Lurch stop at one after a group of bikers nearly run them over on the road. Wednesday wanted to start a Bar Brawl as payback, but her poor choice of wording by telling Lurch what he can do with his hands results in him playing "I Will Survive" on the piano.
- Big Bad: Cyrus Strange, a mad scientist who tries to convince Wednesday that she is his daughter.
- Big Damn Heroes: Fester shows up as a leviathan-sized octopus to save his family from Cyrus.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Margaux, Parker, Layla, Kayla, Bethany and members of the extended Addams family who moved into town in the last movie are absent with no given explanation.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Cyrus Strange is this to Margaux Needler. Margaux was nothing more than a simple real estate agent only concerned with appearances and her actions can be interpreted as a Well-Intentioned Extremist while Cyrus is a somewhat famous Mad Scientist motivated by money and power and is more-or-less a Card-Carrying Villain. Their defeats also differ, Margaux is a Karma Houdini who, despite having her crimes exposed, does not suffer any long-term repercussions while Cyrus ends up suffering through Laser-Guided Karma and falls off his mansion after turning into a One-Winged Angel. The way they antagonize the Addamses is also different as Margaux tended to go for the direct approach and lead a full-scale assault on the family while Cyrus tends to be more emotionally manipulative and break the family apart while also planing to experiment on them. In regards to how they treat their own families, Margaux tends to be rather dismissive of Parker and is divorced while Cyrus's wife and daughter are experimental guinea pigs.
- Dance Party Ending: The film ends with the family coming back to their mansion only to discover Grandmama and Cousin Itt hosting a rave. They join in on the party anyway.
- Destroy the Product Placement: The film has a series of advertisements tied to Progressive Insurance. In the film proper, while traveling across the country, Thing drives the caravan through a billboard featuring Flo.
- Disney Villain Death: Cyrus and Fester both tumble off a ledge during the climax, but while Fester pulls himself up with his mutated tentacles, Cyrus never reemerges.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: The dance party at the end of the film has several strobing effects used in its editing. Also, a strobe light effect is used at the start of the 2D-animated slideshow of the Addams' vacation around the world, but this doesn't last very long.
- Gene Hunting: The primary conflict is kicked off by a lawyer stalking the Addamses at the behest of a Californian family that believes their daughters were switched at the maternity ward. This turns out to be a lie to get Wednesday's gene-splicing formula.
- Hulking Out: Cyrus basically does this upon his mutation.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: As always, Cousin Itt. The family have no issue whatsoever understanding him.
- Iron Butt Monkey: Pugsley. And how.
- "Jaws" Attack Parody: In Miami, Fester clears out the water with a shark fin on his back.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Early on, when Pugsley tries to impress a couple of girls with a dance, Wednesday prepares to use a voodoo doll to make him dance. At first, it seems like she's going to help him dance to impress the girls in rare Pet the Dog moment toward him. It turns out she's making him do an embarrassing dance to humiliate him in front of the girls and everyone else in the area. She even gives him a wedgie and throws him over the edge of Niagara Falls to try and kill him. Later, in the climax, she basically says that she was completely fine with the idea of Pugsley being experimented on by Cyrus.
- Just Think of the Potential!: Cyrus wants Wednesday's gene-splicing formula to perfect his research into genetic modification and sell the ability to tailor the genes of human subjects to the military, foreign governments and telemarketing companies. Wednesday declines, least of all because they try to get her to test it out on her family first.Cyrus Strange: (to Wednesday) Imagine who would pay for that! The military, foreign governments, call centers! They’d all want unstoppable hybrid murder machines programmed down to the cellular level! Imagine how RICH AND FAMOUS WE’LL BECOME! ALL THANKS TO YOUR EXPERIMENT! (cue Evil Laugh)
- Kidanova: Pugsley spends the plot trying to meet girls, striking out because of Fester's bad advice.
- Knockout Gas: Cyrus does this to Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley and Thing after he reveals his true nature and just as Gomez tries to attack.
- LEGO Genetics: Wednesday presents a science fair project that's about splicing desired traits between two subjects. She demonstrates by splicing the intelligence of her pet octopus into Fester, with the side effect of gradually mutating him into an octopus monster over the course of the plot. She claims the formula as a proprietary "family recipe".
- Mythology Gag: The end credits show a scene of the Addamses having portraits drawn of them, with the portraits in question being identical to how they were depicted in Charles Addams' original cartoons.
- Never Found the Body: After Wednesday has finished her High-Altitude Interrogation of Mr. Mustela over a cliff, she cuts the rope and lets him fall. He never appears again, heavily implying that he didn't survive.
- One-Winged Angel: Cyrus mutates into a bizarre animal hybrid monster during the climax and attempts to personally kill the Addamses.
- Product Placement: Aside from the above-mentioned Progressive ad, there are name-drops to various real-world entities, including Talking Heads, Amazon Prime and Billie Eilish.
- Pun: Cyrus taunts Morticia after knocking out Gomez, Pugsley and Thing with a sleeping gas that he forgot to thank her for the tip, holding a severed finger.Cyrus Strange: (to Morticia) Oh, where are my manners? I forgot to thank you for the tip! (holds a severed finger and does an Evil Laugh, while Morticia loses consciousness) I’m good! I’m so good!
- Running Gag:
- A man keeps trying to propose to his girlfriend, only for the Addamses's shenanigans to ruin the moment. She eventually accepts the proposal simply to avoid any future disaster proposals.
- Wednesday’s cruel treatment of Pugsley, and she makes no secret of it. Things she’s done include using a voodoo doll to force Pugsley to dance, throwing said voodoo doll to make him fall off a cliff, trying to trick him into going inside an oven, and snatching a dollar that Pugsley was about to pick up from the ground.
- Sanity Slippage: Cyrus, upon his mutation, goes completely murderously insane.
- Shout-Out:
- In Death Valley, Wednesday glances at signs that point to settings of various horror films, such as Haddonfield and Crystal Lake.
- Strange calls Morticia "Elvira".
Morticia Addams: You faked that DNA test…
Cyrus Strange: Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH! Oh, pipe down, Elvira! - Sleepwalking: Pugsley raids the fridge in the middle of the night, muttering to himself about Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
- Slow Transformation: Throughout the course of the film, Fester slowly mutates thanks to Wednesday splicing his genes with that of her pet octopus Socrates. During the climax, he fully transforms into a giant octopus monster just in time to take on a similarly mutated Cyrus.
- The Unreveal: Itt tells Wednesday that he went through a phase in his teenage years where he completely shaved himself and shows her a picture on his phone. The audience only sees her mildly intrigued reaction.
- Vocal Dissonance: Lurch sings "I Will Survive" at a Death Valley bar, and in a very high-pitched manly tone, as opposed to his guttural growling.
- Voodoo Doll: Wednesday keeps one of Pugsley on her. She uses it to embarrass him in front of some cute girls at Niagara Falls. He is quite vocal about the unfairness of the situation.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Both the Needler family and extended Addams family who moved into Assimilation don't feature at all, even in scenes set in New Jersey.
