La Famille Addams : Les Retrouvailles

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.

Sadly, it is nowhere near as delightful as the previous two films, but Curry and Hannah do a fine job in their roles, too bad about the rest of the cast. The production values were not as good as the last two films, either, but it is still watchable.

Pugsley might have passed, but Wednesday was very stiff and seemed to only stare a lot. Fester resembled the cartoon version of himself, so much so that it was scary.

Curry could very well have made the role of Gomez his own if Julia had not had it first. And Hannah does a pretty good job herself, though no one can beat Houston's version.

Alice Ghostley, again sadly, did a terrible job as Grandma-ma. She just wasn't right for this part.

I can suggest this film only for those who are die-hard Curry fans, as he is absolutely delicious as Gomez. Other than that, the best I can say is that it is an unoffensive children's comedy.

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

Poor old Raul Julia would be spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken if he could see what had become of the Addams Family series. Along with "Super Mario Bros.", this would undoubtedly be one of the most appalling major studio films ever to appear; made for video or not, there's no excuse to make movies which suck so utterly it's painful to watch them all the way through. When my former housemate borrowed this one evening I watched it like a rubbernecker gawks at a road accident. An adequate cast struggles desperately with an idiotic script playing characters made familiar by other people, far more convincingly: Nicole Fugere couldn't begin to come close to Christina Ricci's Wednesday if she lived to be a million. Only Tim Curry has any sparkle, but he could ham up the phone book and make it work. Turkey, with a capital "T"