The Addams Family focuses on the titular family, with Gomez and Morticia - voiced by Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron, respectively - having moved to the state of New Jersey after being chased out of their original hometown by an angry mob over their macabre way of life. Years later, Gomez prepares their son Puglsey, voiced by Finn Wolfhard, for an upcoming rite of passage ceremony while Morticia struggles with their daughter Wednesday, voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz, who wants to experience life outside of the family mansion. And that wish has the possibility of coming true, when a popular reality TV host, voiced by Allison Janney, looks to rid the town of the Addams family and their home as a way of boosting her ratings.
Despite the Addams Family always being known for their macabre sensibilities and dark sense of humor, much of that is lacking in this animated retelling of the family’s origins. Some of this is briefly seen at the very beginning of the film, as Gomez and Morticia hold a ghoulish wedding ceremony that quickly gets them run out of town with some delightfully dark visuals. However, once the film switches gears, it surprisingly plays things relatively safe, for nearly the rest of the movie
While the film was directed by the duo who directed the raunchy animated Sausage Party - Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan - much of The Addams Family’s humor is the total opposite of that film. There are some visual gags that hint at the family’s darker side, such as the children’s potentially life-threatening methods of sleeping, but many of the jokes feel like pretty standard moments of physical comedy. People’s pants fall down, others trip, run into things, and occasionally something will get comically blown up right in someone’s face.
As a result, this film often feels dull and lifeless, which is shocking given the source material. And it’s a shame, because there are a lot of talented actors lending their voices here that really are trying to have some fun with the material. Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron do have great chemistry and do play off each other well, with Isaac leaning into Gomez’s sillier side while Theron gives some great deadpan delivery. Nick Kroll is by far the standout as Uncle Fester, getting most of the film’s funnier moments, which are mainly over-the-top sequences where he awkwardly tries fitting in with others, including one very funny moment where he tries to sing for a crowd and sings horribly off-key. This feels like such an obvious gag, and on paper, it kind of is, but in the hands of Kroll, it feels so larger than life that it’s hard not to smile.
However, none of these characters ever really get any sort of unique storyline, with much of their time spent just showing them reacting to their children’s behavior or occasionally interacting with Allison Janney’s Margaux Needler, who is a fairly lackluster villain in and of herself. While Janney’s voice work is committed, her motivations and methods feel like such rehashes of so many other movie villains. She’s simply a power hungry celebrity who will do whatever she can to get people to worship her as this god-like figure, including the very obvious manipulation of others to fit her agenda. It’s been seen countless times before in other movies and nothing is really done here to maker her stand out.
Meanwhile, the extremely talented Finn Wolfhard is sorely wasted as Pugsley, who’s barely seen throughout the movie. However, a big focal point of the movie is this ceremony of his that takes place towards the end. The issue is, not only is Pugsley not seen enough to really increase the stakes of this ceremony’s importance, but it’s not even clear what this ceremony is, other than the fact that other Addams family members have done it before. Plus, it barely even feels essential to the rest of the film, so when it’s seen, not only is it not even fun to watch, but it feels like a massive waste of time in hindsight.
The only storyline that really works is Wednesday’s, which is the only time where there are any other hints of the Addams that everyone knows and loves is seen. There are moments where she’s seen going up against a bully, and her methods of handling this bully are some of the more laugh-out-loud moments in the film. Plus, she constantly plays off Elsie Fisher as Needler’s daughter Parker, and their stark contrasts make for some other fun moments. And it’s easy to invest in these moments given Parker’s own compelling storyline of living under her mother’s close eye, along with Fisher’s charismatic voice work.
Despite this storyline working, if there’s one thing that nearly every subplot of this film shares in one way or the other, it’s that it betrays the very idea of what the Addams Family has always been about. The Addams always had this “be yourself” message to them through their love of the macabre. They loved being different and really didn’t care what others thought of them, and always encouraged that mentality.
Here, though, nearly every subplot dives into this idea that maybe they should be like everyone else. Gomez wants Pugsley to go through with this ceremony because all the other Addams before them did it. Wednesday wants to start dressing normally because that’s what everyone else she knows does. And the family actually considers buying into Needler’s plans of redoing their house because that will allow them to be accepted by everyone. While these are merely plot points that eventually get resolved in one way or another, the fact that this film spends most of its run time entertaining these thoughts - rather than just showcasing an hour and a half of the Addams taking part in dark, twisted activities - is not only boring, but goes against everything the family represented in all other previous incarnations.
The Addams Family is a much more kid-friendly version of the creepy and kooky family, but unfortunately kids won’t enjoy it any more than adults will. While it has a talented voice cast who all do a solid job, as well as some legitimate moments of laughter here and there, this is a mostly unfunny movie that has a poor message behind it. Rather than using the Addams family’s dark sense of humor to give a good lesson about being yourself, the film instead plays it safe with bland jokes as well as entertaining the notion that it may be okay to be just like everyone else at the expense of one’s own feelings. While the Addams Family have plenty of memorable incarnations, this is not one of them.
Recommendation: Avoid It
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