ViewGuide

Created Oct 14, 2017 12:01AM PST • Edited Oct 12, 2019 09:29PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Barely OK 2.0

   The Addams Family does the impossible. This big-budget, big-screen adaptation of the much-beloved ‘60s TV series makes banal the sophisticated quackery of the original, both the TV Land classic and Charles Addams’ seminal New Yorker cartoons. Sadly, the jokes – too on the nose – are blindingly obvious.

   Insult gets added to injury by a moviestar cast that simply lacks the charm of their TV antecedents. Kooky!

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

   Moviestars Miss The Boat

   • Anjelica Huston’s Morticia barely holds a candle to the immortal Carolyn Jones’s original.
   • Raul Julia’s Gomez lacks the effortless insouciance of the immortal John Astin. Juliá is a great actor, but comedy isn’t his metier, notwithstanding that The Addams Family became a home run.
   • Christopher Lloyd is a great comedic actor, but no greater than the legendary Jackie Coogan, who played Uncle Fester in the 60s TV series. Coogan’s Fester tops Lloyd’s.
   • Christina Ricci was 11 when she played Wednesday Addams, before going on to have a much larger career than Lisa Loring, but Lisa’s Wednesday remains the cold-hearted standard.
   • Jimmy Workman’s Pugsley Addams is up to snuff as a set-up man.
   • Judith Malina plays Grandmama
   • Carel Struycken’s Lurch totally lacks the charm of Ted Cassidy’s. Cassidy also had a memorable appearance opposite Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
   • Christopher Hart’s hand as Thing
   • John Franklin is bewigged as Cousin Itt
   • Dan Hedaya disappoints as a corrupt lawyer.
   • Sally Jessy Raphael cameos as Herself.

5. Male Stars OK 2.5

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    Barely OK 2.0

    The comedy in The Addams Family satires seedy domesticity, with an old-money family gone slightly bonkers, yet maintaining a living-large joie de vivre. But then it also eagerly flirts with nihilism, yet never follows through with the inevitable tragic consequences. Thus this big budget production gets old quick.

11. Direction Barely OK 2.0

12. Play Bad 1.0

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

    The all-time-great Addams Family Theme Song is barely used.

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

17. Sex Titillating 1.9

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Salty 1.6

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.1

    Never mind the surreal physical and supernatural biological realities, the surreal circumstantial reality proffers a fool and his money who are often parted, yet he is never bankrupted. Surreal

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.7

23. Biological Supernatural 3.7

24. Physical Surreal 3.0