Monster Family 2: Nobody’s Perfect Parent Guide

When their friends are captured by a mysterious monster hunter, Mila (Emily Carey), the Wishbone family once again transform into monsters to try to save them. Along the way they’ll meet new friends, new monsters, and learn more about what family really means.

I have never seen, or even heard of, the original entry into this franchise, so I went into the viewing with no preconceived opinions or expectations. And, somehow, having zero expectations was too high of a bar for this movie to clear. Monster Family 2 is a boring, muddled mess that can’t even be bothered to be so bad that it’s good; it’s just bad.

I can forgive sub-par animation if all the other production elements are well done, but that isn’t the case here, so let’s make fun of the animation for a minute. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, especially considering the small studio and low budget, but the character designs are inconsistently styled, which gets distracting. Some of the humans look somewhat realistic, while others look deliberately cartoony. The various monsters also lack a coherent design vocabulary and look like they came from different films. Even more noteworthy, however, is the lackluster writing, painfully manifested in an unintelligibly convoluted story and laughably juvenile dialogue. The writers use outdated references to try to force some humor, but I have my doubts that the intended audience knows who MC Hammer is. Perhaps the greatest sin of all is that this movie is boring. I did not crack a single smile the whole runtime, and my 5-year-old didn’t laugh once. I was both bored and confused the whole time, which I suppose is an achievement of a sort.

The writers had good intentions as far as kid-friendly messaging goes, though I don’t think they were very successful in reaching their goals. The main idea is that people are imperfect, and the purpose of family is to love one another in spite of our imperfections and mistakes. That’s all fine and good, but I felt like I was being beat over the head with a message that lacked any subtlety. The story also goes to some really dark places in order to get to that message. Mila’s parents are overtly psychological abusive and manipulative to her, even going so far as to replace her with a robot because she’s not perfect enough. Not that I don’t think children should learn about emotional and psychological abuse, but there has to be a better way to go about it. That part of the film was uncomfortably dark, even for me.

Aside from depictions of abuse and manipulation, and the high levels of slapstick violence, there’s not much in the way of negative content but that doesn’t mean I recommend this movie. The poor production quality, boring story, and lack of humor all combine to make a production that I can’t imagine anyone of any age enjoying.