It’s back, muhahahahahahahahaha
The Addams family was created as a series of single panel
comics by artist Charles Addams in 1938. It is no stranger to adaptation,
receiving a TV series in the 1960s, with a TV movie loosely attached, an
animated series in 1973, and an upcoming Netflix series helmed by the guy who was born to
direct this franchise, Tim Burton. But we’re looking at the cinematic releases,
starting with the 1991 film. [I won’t be covering the animated sequel, as it’ll
only just have released]
The film has a notoriously troubled production, with several rewrites, and directors of photography putting the film $5m over-budget. Orion Pictures, who produced several classics such as Silence of the Lambs were sadly already in financial difficulty, sold the North American distribution rights to Paramount. And for what it’s worth, they and the international distributers MGM (who would go onto buy Orion Pictures) got a good deal out of it, the film made $190m on its $30m budget.
The Addams family consists on mother Morticia, father Gomez,
son Pugsley, daughter Wednesday, a hand named Thing and their butler, Lurch and
Grandmama. Gotta say it’s a solid cast, with the actor for Wednesday, Christina
Ricci, pulling off an iconic portrayal of the deadpan daughter. She’s so great
in this, I wonder what she went onto… She played Trixie in Speed Racer? Bet
that was a career highlight.
Anyway, let’s talk about story. The Addams’ have a lot of
money, like so much money that they need an underground river to take them to
their vault. Gomez’ lawyer, Tully, is facing some financial strife and decides to
point his debt collectors in the direction of the Addams’ vault. Abegail
Craven, the debt collector sends her ‘son’ who she calls Gordon under the guise
of being Gomez’ long lost brother Fester. He’s accepted back into the family
but how long can the ruse continue to hold under suspicious children and an
abnormal family.
Having not seen much when it comes to the comic or the TV
show, I can’t really judge how faithful an adaptation it is of the original
source material, however what I can say is that the dynamics of the family live
up to the idea of being creepy and cooky.
A microcosm of this is an early subplot involving a Chinese finger trap.
It’s an Addams family heirloom, which repeatedly traps fingers, it’s given away
for a charity auction but Morticia and Gomez end up bidding on it themselves.
It’s not made all that clear if they actually cared about the trap or just
found outbidding each other sexy.
For the kids, there’s an early subplot about them doing a
school play involving learning to sword fight, rather fitting as the thing they
enjoy doing the most is trying to kill each other. Pugsley’s just fine in this
but he’s outshone every time Wednesday’s in the same scene. She’s also the one with the most active role
of the 2 in the main plot.
As you might expect with a film from the 1990s, the special
effects are hit or miss. Thing actually looks pretty good, and even gets a few
moments to shine on his own. However, there are some laughable special effects
too, the scene where Gomez and ‘Fester’ row across the river, and the hurricane
in the climax are prime examples. The makeup and practical effects though are
top notch.
The story does have a few holes, primarily of which is the
story around Fester, also the terrible accent they went with Doctor Greta
Pinda-Shloss, it reminds me of Mrs Bubkiss from Some Assembly required [not covering that show any time soon], but I’m
pretty sure we were supposed to take Craven a tad more seriously, so it works
less well. Anyway, ‘Gordon’ is supposed to pretend to be Fester but outside of
a few details they don’t know anything about him. They worked in some truths
about finding him in a fishing net after heading to the Bermuda Triangle, but
they couldn’t work in amnesia, which would’ve accounted for all the details he
didn’t know.
What’s funny about that is it turned out that Gordon was
indeed Fester but had amnesia. This resolution was apparently the result of a
cast revolt as this was initially supposed to be ambiguous. Good on the cast
for doing that for whilst it is fitting within the themes of the show, it does
allow him to be a part of the sequel without it feeling icky, also there were
hints throughout as he started getting along with the family that yeah, he was
the real Fester.
The Addams family is a mildly amusing but visually striking,
save for the odd awful special effect, take on the classic comic strip. Whilst
the evil plan is flawed there’s plenty to like, helped by a great cast giving
solid performances, though some have more to do than others.
Rating 75/100
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