The Addams Family (2019) directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Today Shawn and I saw The Addams Family (2019). Let me paint you a picture: It’s 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday, and we are sitting in a theater about half full of rambunctious children. We are sitting in the back row, which is wide open aside from us and 2 groups of parent and young child. Instead of being spaced out, these 2 groups choose to surround us on both sides. Normally, this would be super annoying, because one of those 2 kids chattered throughout the movie, without pause, but honestly, this movie was so much fun that I was almost entirely able to tune her out (I know though – midday children’s movie – I’m kind of a jerk for even thinking for a moment that it might be a hushed crowd.

-Side note: it turns out that all of her endless chatter was actually relevant to the movie. She was asking questions related to the story and character motivation, so I felt like trash for feeling mildly inconvenienced by her, but whatever – The Addams Family is VERY important to me.

Whatever.
No Regerts.
The internet is not allowing me to explain this statement, but trust me - it's relevant.

Synopsis:
Driven from their native land by angry mobs, newlyweds Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) Addams take up residence in an abandoned asylum in New Jersey where they raise their 2 charmingly maudlin children Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard). After several years of peace (or the Addams version of peace, anyway), television fixer-upper host Margaux Needler (played to absolute perfection by Allison Janney) begins building a cookie cutter town nearby. She discovers the Addams’ home looming over her “happy” little town in the making and determines that she will do whatever she needs to to push them out of the neighborhood. Shenanigans ensue.

Hot Take:
We saw the movie in 3D, which was fun. The animation was great (it really captured that Charles Addams feel, in my opinion), and the addition of 3D made for some fun moments, although honestly I think they could have done more with it.

It’s worth noting that there were a lot of nods to horror movies in there, including one laugh-out-loud nod to Universal’s Frankenstein. I actually found myself laughing aloud quite a bit.

And the overall story, as usual is great. The Addams Family is such a wonderful bunch of characters, and I feel like no matter which iteration we’re talking about, I mean, look at them!

Their stories are always about acceptance of people who are different than you, and of loving yourself – what could possibly be better than that?

The internet loves to remind us of the magic of Gomez and Morticia’s relationship, and the incredibly supportive way they interact with their children, and with good reason. They love each other and their kids unconditionally, and that will always be a powerful and timely message. This movie does not fail to cover that ground, although this time, there are some hiccups, the likes of which we don’t usually see from the Addams clan. I don’t want to say anymore, because I want you to go see it yourself.

All in all, I think it was a wonderful addition to the mythos, and well worth seeing, although I don’t think the 3D is necessarily worth the up-charge.

My Rating:

GO SEE IT WHILE IT’S STILL IN THE THEATER!