‘The Addams Family’ Review

You should know something’s up when you see several animated movies during a calendar year such as 2019 that are exquisitely designed and executed. I mean, of course there is a flip side where you’ll get a couple bland looking ones with a voice cast filled with movie stars, examples being previously reviewed Spies In Disguise and now The Addams Family, directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan. What I had gathered earlier was that fans of the Charles Addams’ characters were yearning for a live action so it was already going up(the)hill so to speak. After watching you’d also want a live action since the animation is just overly underwhelming with a story to match.

If there is one genius decision made for the film, it is that the running time is probably 75 minutes excluding intro and credits. It saves a lot of it from sinking too far below and it will also probably please its main demographic, kids, more with sequences that don’t last a long time. Personally I was kind of on board for the first five minutes because it’s exactly what I was expecting the whole movie to be, snappy and dark considering the source material. The voice cast with a special shout to the kid voices, Chloe Grace Moretz (Wednesday) and Finn Wolfhard (Pugsley), do get the tone right despite the missing jokes. Or despite the lack of them, whatever.

What ever synonyms you have for the word bland, they all describe The Addams Family. The antagonist is such a bore of a character that you’d wish for a surprise demise for her immediately. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen and she sticks around for the whole time. Wednesday and Pugsley’s struggles as kids in a new place were really the interesting part of the plot but instead time is spent on the antagonist and relatives of the Addams. The film’s message is basically just an Instagram quote with a budget just like the animation is a Pinterest page but paid with catering. How don’t your colour choices match even when the main ones are black and grey? It all looks like a very cheap morning cartoon for kids.

Smileys: Runtime

Frowneys: Characterisation, colouring

Oh, there’s also a Snoop Dogg song which is so out of place in the movie. Why?

2.0/5