- Trust Weighted
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67Trust Points
Wick's Review
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!
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.
Male Stars - OK 2.5
Female Stars - OK 2.5
Female Costars - OK 2.5
Male Costars - OK 2.5
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.
Direction - Barely OK 2.0
Dialogue - Bad 1.0
Music - Barely OK 2.0
The all-time-great Addams Family Theme Song is barely used.Visuals - Really Great 4.5
Edge - Risqué 2.0
Sex Titillating 1.9
Violence Fierce 2.5
Rudeness Salty 1.6
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