The Addams Family: Film Review

The Addams Family: Film Review

Vocal cast: Charlize Theron, Oscar Isaac, Chloe Grace Moretz, Alison Janney, Nick Kroll
Director: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon

Another do over for the Addams family, albeit in animated form this time around offers varied reasons to exist, but none strong enough to truly stand out in the cinema, proffering more TV bound fare than big screen thrills.

In the latest, when Morticia and Gomez are driven out of town on their wedding night by a pitchfork mob, they take up residence in one of the most hideous places they could ever imagine - New Jersey.

Moving into an abandoned asylum, the Addams' desire for a normal life is shattered when a home renovation TV show sets their sights on their home for a makeover...

Theron and Isaac make a fine lead duo but the ghouls' share of the grins go to Chloe Grace Moretz as Wednesday whose deadpan delivery makes a macabre treat that the script really doesn’t deserve thanks to lazy writing within.

Janney’s ghastly Reno TV mom is a ghoul of her own and adds an OTT counterpoint to the monochrome Addams, but the idea that assimilating into the ordinary and not standing out like the Addams do is not a new - or totally enticing - idea.

Equally Kroll's Fester is a delight but he’d hardly given enough to do and is confined frustratingly to the sidelines.

A few emo gags fly past here but are mostly lost in an animation that’s less than interested in embracing the gallows humour that the Addams Family is famed for and more interested in trying to push the idea that weird is good - something the target audience will already know and probably won't rock their world.

Ultimately, The Addams Family does just about enough to justify its existence, but not enough to sound a horn for a spooky and kooky revival that the series would have wanted.