The Addams Family: Interestingly Macabre but where's the humour?

A still from The Addams Family Movie. Picture courtesy/The Addams Family's Twitter account

The Addams Family
U; Animation, Comedy, Family
Director: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Allison Janney, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler
Rating:

Charles Addams macabre cartoon strip creation of 1938 gets yet another big-screen spin-off, this time a wholly animated one( as opposed to the two live-action features earlier).

The Addams Family's ghoulish existence endures while the family dynamic continues in sweetly endearing contrast. Father Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and mother Morticia (Charlize Theron) are totally in love and adore and are devoted to their daughter Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard). They appear to have no qualms about the scary nature of their acceptance of all things unusual and weird. They have an escaped prisoner from the asylum for the criminally insane as a butler, a disembodied hand as an all-purpose helper and do the unthinkable like applying the ashes of dead parents as make-up and encourage a child to play with explosives. It's meant to be macabre-funny and it is in brief spells.

Watch the trailer of The Addams Family

The CG treatment from directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon is fairly interesting and the voice talent does their best with the dialogue, but it's never laugh-out-loud funny. The artwork for the characters and setting looks suitably macabre and the ghoulish elements of the story add weight to the exaggerated drama but the overall experience is still one leaning towards tedium. There's nothing exciting about a storyline that pitchforks trouble as a desire to assimilate. The dull storyline combined with the leaden character contours leave a lot to be desired here.

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