Directors Conrad Vernon & Greg Tiernan give audiences another fun visit with Charles Addams’ famous ooky and spooky family as the Addams hit the road in this adventure spotlighting Chloe Grace Moretz’ Wednesday as the lead.

One of my favorite films of 2019 was the animated Addams Family movie, which reintroduced the classic Charles Addams’ style Addams Family to a new generation following the popular live-action Addams Family films of the 1990s featuring Raul Julia and Anjelica Houston as the leads. the 2019 reimagining featured a wealth of amazing voice talent, including Oscar Isaacs as the Addams patriarch Gomez and Charlize Theron as his delightfully spooky wife Morticia. Most of the cast from the 2019 film returns for this road-trip-themed follow-up, save Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard, who is replaced in this sequel by Euphoria’s Javon Walton. The film is a non-chronological follow-up to the first film; with the events of the first film largely ignored to present another new adventure with the core family members. While the original is still the standard-bearer, The Addams Family 2 is a solid entry that doesn’t take away from what made the first film so much and gives you more of what worked in the first film.

In this follow-up, we follow Wednesday (Moretz) as she presents her latest scientific breakthrough at the school science fair; a machine that will transfer traits between animals and humans. In this instance, the positive traits of her pet octopus Socrates are to be transposed onto her dim but loveable Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll). When it seems her Uncle has gained some of Socrates’ better traits, Wednesday sees herself as the easy winner of the fair. Unfortunately, the school decides to not name a winner, instead of deeming everyone involved a winner just for participating. This doesn’t sit well with Wednesday, as she feels she isn’t being recognized for her greatness. However, the sponsor of the fair, a Silicon Valley based inventor named Mr. Strange (Bill Hader) sees a lot in Wednesday’s innovation. He wants to further Wednesday’s discovery, but Wednesday shrugs him off, as she tells him the discovery is a family secret.

But although Wednesday sees the pride in a family secret, she’s tired of her father Gomez’s attempts to bond with her; seeing them as a sign he is dying or more likely out of touch with her needs. Gomez’s response is to double down and he decides the family needs a road trip vacation around the country. But as they get ready to get underway, a mysterious lawyer (Wallace Shawn) shows up, claiming Wednesday isn’t really the Addams’ daughter. Gomez and Morticia then set out across the country to keep Wednesday away from the lawyer and his mysterious benefactor, while Grandmama (Bette Middler) watches over the Addams’ homestead and gets into hijinks by throwing a crazy party in need of a headliner.

That’s the basic gist of The Addams Family 2, which, more than anything, is just a revisit to the world of the original film in a way that kids will enjoy and adults get to revisit some of their favorite performers having a blast doing voicework. Much like The Incredibles 2, it’s a film that doesn’t take anything away from the original but also doesn’t add too much in the way of new so much as allow fans to have another adventure with their favorites. Make no mistake, 2019’s Addams Family is a much better film, but this film gives us a lot more of what the first film did great by way of solid performances by Isaac, Theron, Moretz, Middler, and Kroll. It also gives us a nice scenery-chewing baddie in Hader’s Mr. Strange as a mad scientist archetype. They do great and we get a lot more of Snoop Dogg’s Cousin It as well.

Overall if you enjoyed 2019’s The Addams Family, you’ll enjoy this sequel. The animation has even jumped leaps in bounds in just a couple years from the original. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel of these films, but gives us a nice family spooky adventure in time for the holiday and holds plenty of nostalgia for fans of the television show and live-action movies alike.