Mark Reviews Movies: THE ADDAMS FAMILY (2019)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 10, 2019

Although mostly known from a live-action TV series during the mid-1960s and a pair of movies in the early 1990s, the Addams Family originated as cartoons—single-panel comics that appeared in the New Yorker. With this new computer-animated version of The Addams Family, directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon return Charles Addams' characters to their roots, both in terms of appearance and approach. It's best to look at this movie, not as a story involving the Addamses, but as way to enter the weird world of a very strange family.

That's not to say there isn't a plot. There is, and it's easily the most distracting part of Matt Lieberman and Pamela Pettler's screenplay. It doesn't just get in the way of the real fun of the movie, which is to see what random shenanigans the filmmakers have devised for Addams clan as they go about their day-to-day lives. It's also pretty apparent that Lieberman and Pettler don't buy into the need for a plot within their story.

It happens, as the Addams confront the controlling host of a home renovation TV show, and then it mostly means nothing. One suspects the movie would be much stronger without that main storyline—and definitely with more time devoted to some of the family members who get overshadowed here.

The movie definitely gets the look right, and it does so with a very simple approach: going back to the original drawings from the comics and, while giving the characters a polished three-dimensional rendering, staying true to the style and the spirit of Addams' creations. Gomez (voice of Oscar Isaac) is no longer the slim and debonair man from the previous adaptations of the material. He's now downright husky with a plump face—although he still has the mustache.

Morticia (voice of Charlie Theron), Gomez's much-beloved wife, is essentially a stalk of a woman—much like one of the rose stems of her wedding bouquet during the prologue. The only color to her pale skin comes from makeup, and that makeup, in one of the more macabre gags (which is saying something), comes from a pair of urns.

Their wedding is interrupted by a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mob, and 13 years later, Gomez and Morticia have settled into their life together in an abandoned mansion on a hill surrounded by fog. The house is haunted by a spirit, which groans and shrieks and, every so often, tries to kill Morticia.

That's a common trait of the family. Wednesday (voice of Chloé Grace Moretz), with a tall oval of a head, sleeps beneath a guillotine. She also pulls pranks (like a living burial) on her younger brother Pugsley (voice of Finn Wolfhard), who, for his part, tries to blow up Gomez with a rocket and grenades.

Other familiar characters are here, too. The family's butler Lurch (voiced by Vernon), a towering and monstrous figure (whom Gomez and Morticia meet after he has escaped from an insane asylum), sleeps in a padded room and plays assorted tunes on a pipe organ. Thing, the disembodied hand, wanders around, offering several sight gags involving his invisible participation in various activities. The bizarre Uncle Fester (voice of Nick Kroll), with a bulbous nose and a squeaky voice, makes a stop later. There's to be an extended family reunion, to see Pugsley go through a rite of passage involving an elaborate dance with a saber.

The first act or so of this movie spoils us with its control of humor—understanding that the characters, not the material itself, have to be kind of gross but mostly macabre—and its willingness to simply allow these characters to exist without any narrative pressure. Within this laidback approach, there's a sense of freedom, in seeing these characters go through various routines of various degrees of peculiarity, and also one of exploration, in how the filmmakers add new details and layers to this family and their home (such as how a pet lion also makes for a handy garbage disposal).

The movie starts as just a series of gags, some of them as simple as puns (although there's usually a visual component to them, such as when Morticia points out that Pugsley has been crawling up the walls with excitement—before cutting away to Pugsley literally crawling along a wall) or as elaborate as that setpiece involving the rocket chase. What's admirable about this approach—beyond the fact that the jokes are genuinely funny—is how firmly it establishes the tone, the look, and the feel of this world.

Alas, it doesn't last, as we're introduced to that television host Margaux Needler (voice of Allison Janney), who has created an entire neighborhood at the base of the hill. When the fog clears, she's horrified to discover the Addams' mansion and sets out to rid her utopia of that eyesore. The central theme, obviously, is that the Addamses represent individuality, while Margaux is just an agent of boring sameness. That's kind of a given, even without an antagonist.

In theory, opening up the world for the central characters is a solid idea, especially with Wednesday going to school (where she resurrects frogs intended for dissection). In practice, though, the filmmakers unintentionally limit the potential of The Addams Family, trying to fit an amusing, deranged, and freewheeling comedy into a set formula.

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