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The Addams Family (2019)
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Blu-ray Disc Released: 1/21/2020
All Ratings out of
Movie:
1/2
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Review by Mike Long, Posted on 2/13/2020
It can be interesting to examine media entities which have endured for
generations. Charles Addams began
drawing cartoons which depicted a macabre family in the late 1930s, which the
illustrations running in publications like The New Yorker.
In 1964, an iconic television series, The Addams Family premiered
on ABC. Following this, the early
70s saw animated shows featuring the ghastly clan.
The characters came back into the limelight in the 1990s with two feature
films, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values.
Now, after a long dormant spell, the Addams are back in the animated
feature The Addams Family.
Is a new generation ready to embrace these characters?
As The Addams Family opens, we meet newlywed Gomez (voiced by Oscar
Isaacs) and Morticia (voiced by Charlize Theron) who are forced to flee their
European home due to torch wielding villagers.
They settle in to an abandoned asylum in New Jersey along with their
newly-found butler, Lurch (voiced by Conrad Vernon).
The story then leaps ahead and we see that the family has been rounded
out by Wednesday (voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz) and Pugsley (voiced by Finn
Wolfhard). The latter’s
coming-of-age ceremony (“The Mazurka”) is imminent and Gomez’s brother, Fester
(voiced by Nick Kroll), has come to help.
Meanwhile, beneath the fog which surrounds the Addams’ home, Margaux
Needler (voiced by Allison Janney) has designed a pastel town for her home
improvement television show. When
she learns of the Addams, she feels that they may wreck her show, and therefore,
must go.
So, yes, The Addams Family is back and it’s clearly being aimed at…kids?
To prove just how confused this movie is, simply look at the directors
Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon who previously collaborated on the decidedly
adult animated film
Sausage Party.
Prior to that, Tiernan helmed multiple episodes of Thomas & Friends,
while Vernon directed the likes of Shrek 2 and Monsters Vs. Aliens.
As you can see, those are decidedly different projects.
And it’s obvious that the two filmmakers attempted to merge their
previous works into this movie, as we get an animated movie which ostensibly is
made for families, but includes some very dark and macabre humor at times.
Of course, we should expect that sort of thing from any Addams Family
project, and there’s no doubt that a wicked sense of humor was the driving force
behind the live-action films of the 90s.
(Any movie which contains a song with the refrain “Eat me!” is clearly
playing for an older audience.)
But, things feel uneven here, as we will get a scene filled with somewhat
mundane material which will be punctuated with a moment which makes you utter,
“Wait, can they say that?”
That aside, this iteration of The Addams Family doesn’t do much to
separate itself from the pack. When
the family first appeared almost 90 years ago and later on with the 60s
television series, this sort of goth and gallows humor felt unique.
However, following years of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network shows which
skew decidedly weird, The Addams Family seems very tame.
Wednesday may have been the original Hot Topic girl, but she comes across
as all too familiar now. Using the host of an HGTV-like show as the villain was
a nice idea, but the movie hits a big plothole when Margaux announces that she
wants to build a town…for a town which is already full of people.
What? The movie also acts as
if the audience is familiar with the family, but given that the target audience
wasn’t alive when the last film debuted, this seems like a miscalculation.
Perhaps as someone who has witnessed so many incarnations of the characters in
the past, I’m being too hard on The Addams Family.
In the grand scheme, this isn’t a bad movie.
The character design is interesting, as some of it harkens back to Addams
original sketches, and the bizarre humor does produce some funny moments.
The “be yourself” lesson featured here may not be original, but given the
decidedly independent nature of the Addams, it does ring true.
If I were going to introduce the Addams to a new generation, I would
still turn to the live-action movies, but this Addams Family is still worth
visiting.
The Addams Family
completes its checklist of stereotypes by showing that middle school is hell on
Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
The film has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC
1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps.
The colors look very good, as the transfer nicely balances the darkness
of the Addams’ house with the pastels of the town.
The level of details is excellent and we can see the work which went into
the animation, while the depth gives the movie a quasi-3D look.
The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and
an average of 5.5 Mbps. The track
provides clear dialogue and sound effects.
There are many moments where the camera flies though the house or the
town, and these scenes deliver impressive surround sound effects which contains
distinct sounds. The subwoofer
effects also work well given the thuds and crashes in the film.
The Addams Family
Blu-ray Disc contains a few extra features.
We start with four DELETED AND EXTENDED SCENES which run about 6 minutes.
These are a combination of animatic animation and storyboards.
“Charades with Thing” (4 minutes) is a little game featuring the famous
hand. “Life of a Scene” (3 minutes)
walks us through the various elements which go into making an animated films
from storyboards to layout to animation to lighting.
“Welcome to the Family” (6 minutes) has Co-Directors Greg Tiernan and
Conrad Vernon and Producer Alison O’Brien kicking off a brief featurette which
gives an overview of the film. We
hear from the voice actors who describe their characters.
“Addams Family Throwback” (1 minute) looks at the history of the
characters and offers some of the old Addams cartoons.
Lastly, we have two “Lyric Videos” for the songs “Haunted Heart” and “My
Family”.