La Famille Addams : Les Retrouvailles

Well, being an avid fan of the first two movies, they are amongst my favorite comedies, right on top, I waited two years before seeing this one. This third movie set the tone for the recent, and bad, television revival of the 60s series. Now was waiting to see some desastrous piece of crappy humor, some flat laughs and a big bunch of easy jokes. I did get that but not in the way I was waiting for. In fact I was surprised. Sure the postal worker part is bad enough to burn the tape, some jokes are recycled from the first two movies and not in a pretty way but it has good laughs, it is better constructed than the recent tv series and in a way it is more reminiscent of the original comic strip and 60s series than the first movies. Why ? Well for a few reasons. Before the Sonnenfeld movies, The Addams Family wasnt that dark and macabre, it was dark but not as much as the movies. In this third installment we dont have the lovable Lloyd Fester and as despicable as he can be, this new Fester is much more like the original. The beginning of this movie is painful and boring but in the second half we are more nicely treated with better performances and a good story. Because this story cant be worst than the story of the second movie, cant it ? Dont take me wrong, I love the first two movies but this one aint bad at all. Last thing, there is one element in this Addams incarnation that is better than in the first movies : Pugsley. He wasnt interesting or funny in the Sonnenfeld movies but in this one he successfully gets a few laughs from me, and believe me, thats a hard thing to do ! :)

Tim Curry, was the spitting image of Gomez Addams as renowned cartoonist Charles Addams portrayed him in his original cartoons, and had the experience in playing creepy guys. He was the perfect choice to play Gomez...had the directors, writers and editors allowed him to act.

The same goes for the rest of the cast, as well. Daryl Hannah is a renowned actress who might seem counter-intuitive in a "dark" role, but she played the character well. Carel Struycken was a veteran as Lurch. Nicole Fugere's performance as Wednesday was totally flat, but after seeing what this brilliant young actress has done to the role in Fox Family's The New Addams Family, it is difficult to believe that it's the same girl.

With the amazing cast for this film, it had the potential to be the greatest Addams Family experience ever. But the plot lacked cohesion, the delivery lacked polish, and the movie simply lacked quality. The computer graphics were unrealistic and purely gratuitous.

Curry's performance as Gomez was outstanding, but no one person could save this bomb. I was painfully disappointed at the amount of talent wasted in this film, and hope that some day Curry, Fugere, and the rest will reunite under a more competent director to make a real Addams Family movie.

I came into this with low expectations, understanding it was going to be aimed at children. They missed and hit some toddlers instead. It actually could have been quite a bit better (all the way up to a 5, maybe) if it had been a bit more subtle. As it is, the acting was WAY too grotesque. Uncle Fester's character is a joke. Not funny at all. The same script with a different director and some new actors might have worked.

Not one single good gag. Not one single funny line throughout the film. The entire cast gives lousy performances. I know that when the film was made, Raul Julia(may he rest in peace) had died, and that Christina Ricci was getting a little too old to play Wednesday; but did they really have to recast everyone else, too? The only original cast members left are Carel Struycken(Lurch) and Christopher Hart(Thing). All of the new cast is severely miscast; Tim Curry has pulled off some good performances in the past, but come on, he's just not Gomez. Not in a million years. He lacks the 'Latin-American' spirit that Raul possessed. Daryl Hannah obviously tries hard to portray a Morticia faithful to Anjelica Huston, but she fails; she's too lively, and far too naturally beautiful; they tried to cover it up(well, mostly... for some reason, she shows cleavage in the last scene... who thought of that? Ridiculously out of character.) but they couldn't. Another problem is that she's too luscious, whereas Morticia is supposed to have a dangerously, unhealthy thin figure. Patrick Thomas, who plays Fester, is a joke. A bad one. He overdoes Fester so horribly, that I actually cringed every single second he was on screen. I doubt that he could have done much worse. The new child actors are also bad; Nicole Fugere as Wednesday lacks the eeriness and creepiness of Christina Ricci. She never conveys any sort of emotion, not even the disgust that Ricci did so well in the previous two films, whenever something happy or lively was around. Nicole lacks that talent; she just looks the part, that's all. It's pretty much the same with Jerry Messing, the new Pugsley. He looks pretty much like Pugsley is supposed to look, but lacks the acting ability of Jimmy Workman, the actor from the two previous films. The humor of the film is as bad as it gets; whereas the first two had great black humor, this one is reduced to childish humor, which just every once in a while has a bit of 'blackness' to it. But it's all childish, which means tons of humiliation of, and ridiculous amounts of pain inflicted to, different characters for no apparent reason(other than to make children and people with equally bad humor laugh). The effects are also excruciatingly bad; you would have thought that they'd have developed better techniques through the five-six years that passed between making the previous film in the series and this. I mean, honestly, the effects look worse than they did back in the first film. All in all, this is one of the worst films I've ever seen, and I think it's too bad that they had to end the series with such a horribly unfunny film. I don't recommend this horrid piece of garbage to anyone, even children shouldn't be mistreated and go through the pure torture it is to watch this wretched film. You think I'm exaggerating? See it for yourself... no, better yet; take my word for it... it's horrible. One of the most pathetic attempts at comedy I've ever had the enduring pain of watching. If you do decide to give this film a chance, be prepared for the absolute worst. You were warned... 1/10

A postman gets a bit of a surprise but manages to complete his task of delivering a parcel to the Addams family. At last, Gomez has received a copy of the Addams family history and sets about tracking down distant relatives. Making contact, they invite Grandpa and Grandma Addams to stay with them for a while and get acquainted. However minor things about their characters mark them out as being a bit different from the rest of the family and Gomez doubts their veracity and starts to try and track down more of them.

The opening credits to this film had not even finishing running and already it was clear that this was going to be a cheap and stupid film that totally fails to capture the enjoyably dark mood of the previous two remakes. In the opening scene we have a horribly mugging postman chased by cheap special effects while "wacky" music plays over the top of it all. This is a million miles from the Gothic dark humour of the two other films and it sets the standard for the rest of this shoddy laugh-free zone. The plot is pretty poor and uninspiring, providing only a very basic frame to keep things moving. Laughs are hard to come by and certainly those who enjoyed the two other films (I did) will find little to enjoy here.

The feeling of it all being a cheap knock-off is right up there on the screen. The flat cinematography and lighting cannot even compare to the darkness and atmosphere of the other two films and the direction is never better than average. The cast continue this trend. The replacement of the original actors is no surprise but it is impossible to forgive how poor they are. Curry is generally watchable but here he has just been told to impersonate Julia and his inability to make the role his own means he pales by way of comparison. Of course he looks like Brando when viewed alongside Hannah. Huston had great presence but Hannah just feels forced and in no way fits the role. Messing looks the part but Fugere can get nowhere near Ricci. Thomas is terrible as Fester and people like Begley and McCarthy should really have had something better to do with their time.

Overall a terrible film from start to finish. Well, actually, let me be fair – I don't know if it was terrible all the way to the end because I bailed out just after the halfway mark. It had all become too much for me to bare and I saw no reason to stick with it whatsoever. It looks cheap, has poor performances, a poor plot, cheap effects and generally feels shoddy – if the makers didn't bother to put the effort in then why should you?