They’re creepy and they’re kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They’re Lit Fam!
The Addams Fam-a-lee. The Addams Family
[snap, snap]
It’s an all new family for the new generation.
This just in, for old curmudgeons that might write this off as a kids movie, kids movies are actually for kids. And my theater full of kids was laughing and loving this movie.
Creepy & Kooky
The Addams Family (2019) is about newlyweds Morticia and Gomez Addams finding the house of their dreams, starting a family, preparing for the coming of age of their son, and fitting into the neighborhood. Oh and also they look right out of a gothic horror movie.
Now the nuclear Addamses are technically not monsters. That was the plot to The Munsters, different (better) 60’s TV show. One that didn’t get a couple movies in the 90’s with Christina Ricci and Anjelica Huston or now an animated movie. They got that sample in a Fall Out Boy song though. So there’s that.
The extended Addamses are a bit strange looking though.
Lurch walks and talks like Frankenstein’s Monster. Cousin Itt is just a walking mass of hair that talks like Alvin the Chipmunk on speed (technically voiced by Snoop D-O-double G but completely produced and unrecognizable, maybe reversed and altered). Thing is the name of a hand. Just an animated (well the whole movie is animated, but you get it) disembodied hand. In the 2019 version he wears an iWatch. Not that it has the branding, but it is a watch with an eyeball on the display. The rest of the family looks even more odd when they are gathered at a wedding at the beginning of the movie, or for Pugsley’s ceremony at the end.
Mysterious & Spooky
Despite the scary exterior, the Addams in any iteration have always been a very loving family. This film follows Wednesday feeling cooped up at home and Pugsley preparing for a mazurka which is a sort of performance sword art. But Wednesday would rather go to Junior High and meet new people, and Pugsley prefers explosives to old fashioned weaponry.
The parents that were once run out of town by an angry mob for not fitting in have to learn a valuable lesson about letting their kids go their own way without necessarily fitting into what they wanted for them.
Also a whole new town and whole new angry mob is out for those monstrous Addams.
The townspeople are led by Allison Janney’s HGTV knock off/realtor/big brother spy/puppetmaster Margaux Needler. She has the most interesting vocal performance in the cast by lending a bit of crazy underneath her controlled exterior. Just like her perfect little town. It looks pristine on the outside, but has a jealous social underbelly.
So don’t judge a book by the cover. Just in case you missed the message.
Altogether Ooky
The Addams Family isn’t a subtle movie, but it isn’t a bad movie either. It has deadpan snap enough to be entertaining for parents along with kids. It’s also true to a different kind of character than is often featured in animated movies. The animation itself helps with some of the more outlandish gags like the living tree next to their house, and Uncle Fester’s constant near death experiences. But overall it is missing a certain polish that cinematic cartoons normally have.
The highlight of the film though is the music. Lurch has his organ, as in any adaptation, but he jazzes up the soundtrack with song choice and a set of pipes that have nothing to do with the keyboard instrument.
Great kids movies have been few and far between in recent years. This is another perfectly fine way to spend an hour and a half, but nothing revolutionary. The Addams Family (2019) seems custom made to play every other day during ABC Family’s 31 Nights of Halloween in a couple years. It sets the scary mood, without having to be particularly good.
Check out The Addams Family in theaters this weekend. And if you’re in the Halloween *spirit* maybe check out our review of that creepy kooky clown movie also still in theaters.