Movie Review: The Addams Family

The Addams Family ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon.

Written by: Matt Lieberman and Pamela Pettler based on characters created by Charles Addams.

Starring: Oscar Isaac (Gomez Addams), Charlize Theron (Morticia Addams), Chloë Grace Moretz (Wednesday Addams), Finn Wolfhard (Pugsley Addams), Nick Kroll (Uncle Fester), Allison Janney (Margaux Needler), Bette Midler (Grandma), Elsie Fisher (Parker Needler), Snoop Dogg (It), Catherine O'Hara (Grandma Frump), Martin Short (Grandpa Frump), Jenifer Lewis (Great Auntie Sloom), Tituss Burgess (Glenn), Pom Klementieff (Layla / Kayla).  

 

When The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993) came out in the 1990s, the studio counted on parents who were nostalgic for the 1960s sitcom version of this cheerfully spooky family to bring their kids to the theater to see the updated version – and now, nearly 30 years later, the studio is counting on those of us who were kids in the 1990s – and loved those movies – to bring their kids to this new animated version. I am often amazed by how often those two movies – especially Addams Family Values – comes up on Film Twitter, etc. among people of my generation – not because they weren’t good – they were very good – but because there were so many movies from that time period that have been left in the dustbin of our memories. It’s odd what we develop nostalgic attachments to – and unpredictable.

 

The key difference between those live-action movies of the 1990s and this new animated version is that Barry Sonnefeld and company tried to do something different with the family – including given them a whip-smart script, full of great one-liners, delivered by a great cast (my favorite – as all right people agree – was Christina Ricci as Wednesday) and this new version is content to kind of phone it all in. Perhaps it’s best summed up in the casting of Nick Kroll as the voice of Uncle Fester who it seems essentially showed up to record his lines and decided that just doing the same voice as Coach Steve on Big Mouth would be good enough. The whole movie smacks of people saying, that’s “good enough”. It didn’t actively annoy me like many of the worst animated films this year did – the time passes pleasantly enough – but it’s such a lazy, warmed over message - the people who outwardly look like monsters are really the nice ones, and the ones who outwardly look normal can be horrible – that you wonder why they didn’t just didn’t hire Tim Burton to direct it and be done with it.

 

The opening scene of the movie is the midnight wedding of Gomez and Morticia (Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron) who then have to run away – again – from locals wielding pitchforks and torches. They are determined to find the most miserable place to live – and find it – in an abandoned mental institute, on a dark and stormy hill, covered in mist and dog, and isolated from the rest of the world. They live their happily – raising their two kids into their tween years – Wednesday (Chloe Grace Mortez) and Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) in isolation. Eventually though, the outside world comes knocking. Margaux Needler (Allison Janney) who has one of those home renovation shows, and has founded a new community called Assimilation – discovers this dark mansion on the hill overlooking her town – and is determined to make it look “normal”. This coincides with the extended Addams family all coming to the Mansion for a family writ of passage for Pugsley – that he is scared her won’t be able to perform, and Wednesday’s decision to stop being home schooled and head into the public school in town instead.

 

For the most part, The Addams Family is at least well animated. All the characters are exaggerated versions of the family you already know and love. They all look good – in particular Lurch, the Frankenstein’s monsters type butler, and Wednesday herself – with the nice touch of her braids ending in little nooses. The film has some clever touches around the edges, and it’s still fun (if obvious) to see the family do the opposite of what the rest of us do (like adding dust to the house when they dust, etc.).

 

And yet, the whole thing is just too obvious, and really lacks energy. It seems like the filmmakers absorbed the lessons that people liked the one liners from the 1990s film, and so every line here seems designed to be a one liner. The film also feels the need to include everything anyone may have wanted from the old films – all the characters, etc. – so the film ends up feeling both overstuffed, but lackadaisical.

 

It’s certainly a better time at the movies than The Angry Birds Movies 2, The Secret Life of Pets 2, Ugly Dolls or Wonder Park from this year (you can tell I have kids – because if I didn’t, there was no need to see any of those). But it’s still a rather lazy film. Kids deserve better than this. I doubt they’ll be able to reboot this franchise again in 2050 for people like my daughters to bring their kids to, if this is the best they can come up with.