Disney sequels and remakes, animal adventures of all kinds, Pixar nonsense and hilarious Illumination Studios titles have made their way onto the big screens and the eccentric, mysterious and scary members of the Addams family. The Addams Family has had many adaptations, but neither recent nor animated feature films, so MGM felt it was time to relaunch this pop culture brand.
Through decoration and the type of family at the center of the action (with macabre interests and supernatural powers), the animation takes you to the Hotel Transylvania, the successful production of Genndy Tartakovsky. However, even if it has a reasonable story, adapted to modern times, and some funny moments, The Addams Family (from October 25 and in our cinemas) does not rise, either as a graphic style or as a narrative technique, at its level.
It starts promisingly, with a witch hunt in which the victims of the Addams clan are killed, the story moves, with Gomez and Morticia, into a residence of their own: a sinister villa in a contemporary American town. Here, the two grow up on Wednesday and Pugsley among spider webs, strange little animals and weapons of all kinds, glad of all their sinister eagerness.
But at the age of preteen, Wednesday, master of white weapons, he wants to see what the world of ordinary people is, so he decides to go to school. The “prison for children” distracts her, because she has the opportunity to make her colleagues scared. Her brother, Pugsley, is forced to prepare for the ritual of maturation, a sort of Jewish Bar Mitzvah, in which he must prove his family-worthy skills; especially when it comes to sword handling, which also gives him the most headaches. Hoping that the event in question will go terribly (well), before Uncle Fester and Bunica arrive, the other relatives appear (who comes with candy between their toes).
However, the near-perfect life of the Addams is overrun by Margaux Needler. Margaux, the host of a reality show that aims to change the face of the city, is horrified by their home and their habits and, by offering her designer services, tries to make them conform to her standards. Cyclical and greedy, she is only interested in rating and multiplying her winnings. A true master of manipulation, he uses modern technology to spread alarming rumors about the inhabitants of the dreadful villas that roar over the city. Her daughter, Parker, who befriends Wednesday and is fascinated by her weirdness, does not agree with her plan.
The story is a bit overloaded, and the premature disclosure of a secret antagonist drops from the impact of the climax. The bizarre behavior of the characters is exploited only to the extent allowed by the script, which also takes into account the sensibilities of the younger audience. Some narrative threads are abandoned without explanation – such as the friendship between Wednesday and Parker – and the ending puts on your tray, in the most trivial way possible, the message of acceptance of the different ones from us, of tolerance, of mutually beneficial partnership; after all, mixing with ordinary people seems to wipe out much of the mystery, eccentricity and horror of the Addams family final portrait.
The animation, however, is appealing through the replicas sprinkled with moderate black humor (“They blow up so fast these days!”) And some action moments (in which, for the most part, Pugsley’s pyrotechnic talents unfold). It also amuses Thing’s jams, but also the appearance of cousin It; Announced by Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like Hot”, with the gold stick, hat, John Lennon glasses, and ruby ring, you don’t expect that only a hair-covered dwarf will come out of the luxury car. And probably, if it wasn’t mentioned in the distribution, no one would ever guess that Thing’s spoiled robot voice is provided by Snoop Dogg himself.
As for the animation, the filmmakers kept things as simple as possible. The inhabitants of the city are colorful and conventional characters (probably in agreement with the motto of the city, which says they must all be the same). The main characters, directly inspired by the original illustrations, received some elements that emphasize their personality: Wednesday they were added to the tails in the form of a bar, Fester was given a thinner voice, funny, but friendly, while the antagonist received an extremely voluminous hairstyle, directly proportional to her ambitions.
The basic musical theme (the melody accompanied by the snapping of the fingers), which has resounded since the first adaptation of Charles Addams’ drawings and has become so popular and beloved, will help nostalgics to some degree to please this newcomer as well. Addams adventure. Certainly, older fans of the characters would have wanted an approach that would use more creatively the huge potential of this satirical investment of the classic family; the film will draw through the unconventional humor and weirdness of the characters, especially those of the viewers to whom the Addams family is first introduced.
