The Addams Family (2019)
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 What should have been a welcome return to the spotlight for the creepy and kooky family we all know and love ended up ending… well, not exactly that.
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The Addams Family is a 2019 animated black comedy horror film directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon of Sausage Party fame and based on the characters of the same name by Charles Addams.
Plot
Members of the mysterious and spooky Addams family -- Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Uncle Fester and Grandma -- are readily preparing for a visit from their even creepier relatives. But trouble soon arises when shady TV personality Margaux Needler realizes that the Addams' eerie hilltop mansion is standing in the way of her dream to sell all the houses in the neighborhood.
UnSpooky and UnKooky Qualities
- At times, the film is way too lighthearted compared to the source material.
- A few of the family members have been flanderized.
- Gomez turned from a bumbling yet well-meaning husband and father into a reckless and energetic nutjob. Also, he's more demure and nervous.
- Morticia turned from a beautiful and caring wife into a very overprotective control freak who wants Wednesday to do nothing with the outside world. This was similar to Gwen from Halloweentown.
- Wednesday is noticeably ruder, albeit marginally, even more so than Christina Ricci's version.
- Lurch is mainly just mute, making weird grunting sounds.
- Uncle Fester is more noticeably stupider than he is in previous Films and TV shows (though he isn’t as bad as the other characters). Most Noticeably, he throws a fit because Pugsley “sunk his battleship” (which was Pugsley slinging an item onto the ceiling that result in uncle fester, who was taking bath, falling through the floors).
- Pugsley has the worst flanderization out of them all. He turned into someone who wants to OUTRIGHT KILL his family members out of pure malice instead of playfulness. He also slacks off in the movie.
- The new characters aren't that good either.
- Magraux Needler is a bland villain who wants to get rid of the Addams just because they are different.
- Bethany is a Generic mean popular girl who likes to pick on Parker.
- Very ugly character designs for the new characters that look like Sausage Party or Norm of the North rejects (ironically, this movie was made by the same people behind that movie) to the point where the Addams Family themselves look very normal than the normal people.
- Both Pugsley and Wednesday look like they're depressed and are drunk and on drugs at the same time, not to mention how their designs translate weirdly into CGI, especially with Wednesday looking less like a human and more like an anthropomorphic thumb.
- Poor humor and jokes, such as:
- An It reference.
- Lurch playing the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood theme song on the organ.
- Wednesday trying to bring a frog back to life at school during a frog dissection. Needless to say, for the latter, watch the movie yourself, and, uh...
- Questionable casting choices, such as Snoop Dogg as Cousin Itt.
- The pop songs and the rap update to The Addams Family theme song are just an attempt to make the Addams Family seem hip and cool, and it doesn't even get the notes to the original theme song right.
- Really bland art style, which tries to be like the original 1937 comics, but somehow it doesn't give a fascinating vibe.
- The film constantly forgets about Pugsley's subplot and felt more like a running gag.
- Character error: Throughout the film, various characters refer to the Addams family members in the plural as "Addams." The correct plural is "Addamses."
- Very unfaithful to the source material it is based on.
- Troubled production history and executive meddling: Initially, In 2010 when Universal and Illumination Entertainment own the rights to create the film, they were originally going to make it a stop-motion film that was going to be directed by Tim Burton and that the stop-motion was going to be in a style similar to his previous animated films such as the Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, but around 2013 without any development time given to the original idea due to Burton working with Disney with projects such as Alice in Wonderland (2010) and it’s sequel as well as a stop-motion remake of Frankenweenie, the project was cancelled and given the film rights back to MGM (who currently owns the Addams) and with the help of most of the Sausage Party crew, including directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, to throw the original stop-motion idea away in favour of a CGI animated film which is a shame since Illumination and Tim Burton’s original stop-motion idea is actually more faithful to the source material compared to MGM and the Sausage Party crew’s CGI idea, the only reason why these changes were made is because MGM wanted to make it a cash grab that was made to not only pander to the nostalgia fans of the source material, but also cash in on the success of Sony Pictures Animation’s Hotel Transylvania franchise, not to mention is that the meddling from MGM caused the entire film to be in development hell for nearly 9 years.
Spooky and Kooky Qualities
- Despite its flaws, its nice to see another Addams Family film after 19 years.
- The animation is pretty good (Despite the bad character designs for the backgrounded characters), and the character designs for The Addams Family are faithfully translated from Charles Addams' 1938 art style. This is because it was animated by Nitrogen Studios, who also animated Sausage Party and the first five CGI seasons of Thomas & Friends.
- Decent voice performances, a particular standout being Oscar Isaac as Gomez, despite what BQ#7 says.
- Despite roughly transitioning into 3D, the designs of the Addams family are very faithful to the original cartoon series.
- Some moments worth a laugh, such as Uncle Fester's reprise of "I Haven't Got a Hat", along with the scene where Uncle Fester gets chased by a boulder.
- Most of the characters are still likable (outside of Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, and Pugsley).
- Uncle Fester and Grandmama weren't that flanderized.
- Mychael and Jeff Danna's music score is good to listen to, and The Addams Family theme briefly played before the end credit is a nice nod to the source material.
- The message of being okay to be different is faithful to one of the source material's main themes.
- A sweet subplot with Wednesday exploring the outside world.
- The Addams's house being painted pink is a neat reference to the colorized version of Addams Family by MGM Studios. (as the actual house was painted pink as it helped bring the black and white footage out better)
Reception
The Addams Family received mixed reviews from critics and fans alike for its narrative and screenplay, though the performances and animation were praised. Rotten Tomatoes, has a rating of 44% and an average rating of 5.29/10, based on 154 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Addams Family's starry voice cast and eye-catching animation aren't enough to outweigh its saccharine handling of the delightfully dark source material." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."
Trivia
- The directors of this film previously directed Sausage Party.
External Links
The Addams Family (2019) at the Internet Movie Database
The Addams Family (2019) on Rotten Tomatoes
The Addams Family (2019) on Metacritic
The Addams Family (2019) on Letterboxd
Video
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Categories:
- Animated films
- Comedy films
- Family films
- Horror films
- MGM films
- Average films
- Box office hits that received negative feedback
- 2010s films
- American films
- Canadian films
- Not screened for critics
- Black comedy films
- Computer-animated films
- Abusing the mascot
- Based on comic strips
- Universal films
- Films that were in development hell
- Cash grabs
- Mediocre media
- Executive meddling
- Halloween films
- Terrible grasp on the source material
- Twenty-plus years too late
- "It's made for kids"