Addams Family

Andrea and I went forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude this past Sunday afternoon to see a movie. As two grown up people with our daughter out of the house, perhaps we opted to go see a grown up movie, maybe the Judy Garland biopic starring Renee Zellweger or The Current War with Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison.

No, we went to see the animated film The Addams Family

As we sat through the trailers for Trolls Word Tour, Artic Dogs and that damn thing about tough guy firefighters who find their world turned upside down by (gasp!) children, I whispered to Andrea, “We really need to start seeing movies for grown-ups.”

This animated version of The Addams Family had a high bar to get over. As children, Andrea and I watched and enjoyed The Addams Family in syndicated reruns. I know a lot of kids preferred the Munsters but I found the Addams Family to be more darkly ascorbic.  And I thought Morticia was hot. As adults, we were fans of the live action Addams Family movies that came out in the late 1990s.

While the Addams Family 2019 is hardly ground breaking, it does get a lot right. The animation captures the zany style of the original illustrations of cartoonist and creator Charles Addams.  The overall look of the film suggests a style from the earlier works of Tim Burton when he was at the top of his game. The juxtaposition of the gothic darkness of the Addams family home perched on its dark, craggy mountain and the cookie cutter pastel town of Assimilation at the bottom of the mountain echoes the style of Edward Scissorhands.

Indeed, the story of the animated Addams’ owes a lot to that classic Tim Burton. The Addams family may be odd, weird and more than a little bit frightening but the true monsters are the allegedly normal people who turn against their creepy, kooky neighbors. The story is your standard “we’re really not that different and why can’t we get along” shtick, nothing we’ve not seen before.

What makes The Addams Family work, besides the wonderfully rendered animation, are moments with individual characters.  Chloë Grace Moretz, Hit Girl from the Kick Ass movies, is inspired casting as Wednesday Addams, Gomez and Morticia's daughter. Her flat delivery of Wednesday’s more provocative lines underscore that Wednesday is not be trifled with. My favorite scene with Wednesday is when she elects to experience junior high school. Confronting a school bully, Wednesday straight up channels Rorschach from Watchmen: “You might thing I’m imprisoned in here with you. No, you are imprisoned in here with me.”

There are scenes of outright absurdity that plays right to the rule of funny, scenes that might not make sense but damn it, their funny. For example, Lurch, with his characteristic monosyllabic grunts and groans, sits down at a piano and with a beautifully high tenor, sings “Everybody Hurts” by REM.

This animated take on The Addams Family may not be a great movie but it’s fun enough to make for a pleasant afternoon diversion.

Even if Andrea and I were outnumbered by children.

Seriously, we need to start seeing more grown up movies. if for no other reason I can stop seeing trailers for that god awful Artic Dogs movie.