America’s favorite macabre family, The Addams Family, falls under the limelight once again as a new full length animated adaptation premiered on Friday, October 11th. Based on Charles Addams’ one-panel comics, The Addams Family, the new movie brings a modern take to several classic characters with an amazing star-studded cast. The voice actors include Charlize Theron as the matriarch of the family, Morticia; Oscar Isacc as Gomez Addams; Chloë Grace Moretz as Wednesday Addams; Finn Wolfhard as Pugsley Addams; Nick Kroll as Uncle Fester; Snoop Dogg as Cousin Itt, and Allison Janney as the new character Margaux Needler. This will count as the family’s 13th (fitting huh?) incarnation in media, with the most successful and beloved ones including the classic 1960s sit-com and the 1990s film adaptations, but will this version hold up to its predecessors?

The story of 2019’s The Addams Family begins with the audience observing how Morticia and Gomez, a recently married couple, come across an abandoned haunted asylum, which becomes their elegant mansion, and an escaped asylum patient who becomes their butler, Lurch. Thirteen years later, the Addams live a life of isolation within their home, leaving their daughter Wednesday questioning what’s hiding on the other side of their carnivorous front gate. 

In the meantime, a famous home improvement show host started building a brand new neighborhood down the hill from their house, eager to sell the newly-built homes. With the Addams’ smog-covered mansion in the landscape, it becomes difficult to sell the homes. This makes her want to get rid of this misfit family once and for all, which she does by turning the people in the town against them.

 The movie contains various storylines, a handful of which remain entertaining throughout the majority of the film; these include the ones following the Addams children, Wednesday and Pugsley. When watching any version of The Addams Family, audiences watch them to see them act out of the ordinary, but this movie steers away from them so much that the focus lies mostly on the villain and her town than the actual family. The story tackles a handful of current issues in the likes of gentrification and xenophobia, but the way the movie portrays these issues makes it feel like it is preaching to the audience rather than actually making an impact.

The criticism for the animation comes from the style’s inconsistency, which becomes obvious within the first fifteen minutes. The animation used for the Addams family members looked extremely well-designed in comparison to their “normal” counterparts, which looked cheaply made and resembled simple cartoons out of an early 2010s Cartoon Network show. 

This movie did an amazing job of staying as true as possible to its original material. The character design closely resembled Charles Addams’ original concepts of the characters and the spot-on casting helped bring the characters to life. The funny moments became the highlight of the movie since the family kept to their signature dark and macabre humor. The film successfully managed to combine aspects from the 60s TV show and 90s movies by mixing elements that were missed in past incarnations such as Morticia’s carnivorous plant Cleopatra, the family’s pet lion, Kitty, and even Lurch playing the harpsichord or organ.

Overall the movie delivered with its characters, humor, and style. While it did lack in certain areas like animation and storyline, the movie managed to stay entertaining throughout the majority of its duration, making it perfect for the Halloween season.

The Chant’s Grade: B+