La famiglia Addams

The Addams are an unique wealthy macabre family. Their corrupted lawyer Tully Alford (Dan Hedaya) owns money to a loan shark. Together they plot to inject a fake Uncle Fester Addams (Christopher Lloyd) into the family so he could search for the family treasure of gold Doubloons.

Barry Sonnenfeld has created a well made Gothic Addams world. The family is played by Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, and Christina Ricci as young Wednesday Addams. This is mostly amusing especially what Wednesday keep doing to Pugsley. All the performers are wonderful. They have all the fun creating these amazing characters. The whole setup is incredibly inventive. The story itself is a bit of a grind. It would be better for the Family to clash more with the 'normal' suburban life. The regular jobs are funny. The kids should wreck havoc on regular school. That's the better sweet spot.

The Addams Family has had a death... Fester Addams. But lo and behold, their lawyer knows a man who resembles Fester and if he passes the impostor off, could gain access to the family vault, full of treasures untold. But can the fake Fester survive the family's maniacal games?

I don't have much experience with older incarnations of the Addams Family. So, I can't make an educated comparison. However, this film excels in every way: macabre, humorous and just plain eccentrically absurd. The casting is also amazing... Raul Julia in the performance of his career, and Christopher Lloyd in a very offebeat role even for him.

This was a breakout performance for Christina Ricci (playing Wednesday Addams). Sure, it possibly typecast her into weird roles ("Casper", "Sleepy Hollow", "Pumpkin") but this is, beyond a doubt, where she fits. She can do drama ("Monster", "Black Snake Moan") but will always be America's goth girl.

This film's dark humor is family appropriate -- cartoon violence, no nudity and marginal language. They simply do not make films like this anymore. Full credit must be given to the writer and director for bringing this family to life in a way that just cannot be repeated. Well, aside from the sequel.

Uncle Fester appears to have come home after a long period of absence, but is he an imposter?

This is a pretty good comedy with great performances, a decent amount of jokes and some memorable scenes.

The plot is for me the weakest aspect of the movie, but it gets us from start to finish and importantly allows for the characters and their actors to shine as much as possible.

I enjoy the visuals which are very atmospheric, entertaining and technically well done. The cinematography and editing is excellent with lots of great shot compositions and lively camera movement. One of my favourite moments is the dance between Gomez and Morticia in the dark empty ballroom that superbly transitions mid dip to the actual ball in full swing.

The production design is perfect for the tone of the film with wonderful set design in the Addams house, along with great costumes and props.

It is the acting that gives it the extra quality, with Raúl Juliá on fantastic form as Gomez and Angelica Huston perfect as Morticia. Christina Ricci shows glimpses of the quality to come in her great Addams Family Values performance.

Generally, speaking this a pretty "fun movie" for most people, kids and adults. I think "fun" is the adjective most people would use in describing this film.

As one who remembered the television series, I thought I would check this out, too. Angelica Huston certainly didn't match Carolyn Jones' beauty but she, along with Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd and Christinia Ricci all were entertaining to watch.

There certainly were no end to the colorful imagines, unique scenes and dialog, special-effects and - for those with a surround system, good sound. It all made for an entertaining and fast-moving film.

I didn't find a lot of laugh-out-loud moments but it did bring a lot of smiles to my face. A lot of this is dark humor, so it helps to appreciate that type of comedy.

Charles Addams' dark characters get the film treatment in Barry Sonnenfeld's THE ADDAMS FAMILY, which is something of a cross between the actual New Yorker comics and the 1960s television show. Not trying to lean too far to either, the movie stays at a safe plane, even incorporating a vague plot involving two grifters, Gordon and Abigail Craven, posing as Uncle Fester and a renowned psychiatrist (Christopher Lloyd and Elizabeth Wilson) who are in cahoots to rob the Addams of their fortune and house. The problem arises when Craven seems to go against his take-the-money-and-run attitude and when the Addams themselves appear to enjoy every minute that they're being taken advantage of. It suits the dark humor well, because since the Addams live in an alternative universe of their own creation in which dark is light, repugnant is beautiful, pain equals pleasure, death is life, and chaos equals order, it leaves the door open for many of their Gothic eccentricities to pull the rug over Lloyd and Wilson over and over again. It's clever, although its only problem is the "needing to introduce the characters we all know" setup which like in all movies based on comics or television shows, looks obvious.

But despite this, everyone is uniformly excellent. Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston lend their looks to embody their cartoon counterparts and are the romantics at the heart of this decidedly perverse story. Christopher Lloyd is also great in his representation of Uncle Fester. But hands down: the one who walks away with the entire movie is Christina Ricci who plays Wednesday as if she were living the role day by day. There's a sadistic gleam in her eyes and her voice that not many child actors have and I think that any other actor of the time that this film was made would have been unable to fit into this difficult part. Other than that, the tone of the movie is perfect: as dark as it wants to be, but never letting its Gothic setting drown it in an inescapable mire. On the contrary, we're constantly aware that this is a typical American family who lives upside down and who are happy in being so even when we gawk and cringe at their oddities.