ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman. Screenplay: Paul Rudnick. Director: Barry Sonnenfeld.
There were plenty of things surrounding the first ADDAMS FAMILY film that I hated more than the film itself: its undeserved status as blockbuster; the stupendously annoying theme song by Hammer; endless iterations of the word "ooky" in print. 1991's THE ADDAMS FAMILY was not a terrible film. It was high-spirited and gleefully performed. It simply exhausted its premise after about fifteen minutes. ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES is lots more of the same, which means that its premise is exhausted before it begins. Yet it's both worse and better than its predecessor, the latter the result of Christina Ricci's marvelously morbid Wednesday.
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES opens with Morticia (Anjelica Huston) giving birth to the newest Addams: baby Pubert, a mustachioed dead ringer for papa Gomez (Raul Julia). This development does not sit at all well with Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman), who believe that the arrival of a new child means an old one has to go. To help manage the children, the Addams Family hires nanny Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), who turns out to be a homicidal golddigger out for Uncle Fester's (Christopher Lloyd) money. When the kids become suspicious, Debbie has them sent away to an upscale summer camp, leaving her to win over Fester and turn him agains the family.
Like many recent megasequels, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES meticulously recreates the original, element for element. Carol Kane replaces Judy Malina as Granny, but the rest of the family cast is back in place. The script is once again largely a collection of black-humored sight gags and one-liners, and the theme song is again rap (a slightly altered version of Tag Team's excruciating hit "Whoomp! (There It Is)"). Even the title design is the same; "no surprises" is clearly the motto in place. The only real question is, is it funny, and as in the case of THE ADDAMS FAMILY the answer is "sometimes." There aren't as many laughs as there were in the original, but the laughs that do come are bigger. There's a great photo among the shots of Debbie's previous disguises, and the summer camp play is an anarchic riot. What almost never worked for me were the jokes in the "setup ... macabre retort" format. I kept wanting to yell out, "All right, they're weird, I get the point."
VALUES is broken into three almost entirely unrelated subplots (not that plot is an issue here). The Pubert plot is basically an excuse for a series of elaborate attempts by Wednesday and Pugsley to do away with the baby, and later for some "normal baby" jokes. The Debbie/Uncle Fester plot is extremely sluggish; Joan Cusack tries gamely, but doesn't quite click as the villainous black widow. The biggest surprise may be that Gomez and Morticia play a very small role in the proceedings. They get a nice, goofy dance sequence, but for most of the film Raul Julia only reacts, while Anjelica Huston spends her time hitting lighting marks so that her eyes and cheekbones appear translucent.
The upside of the senior Addams' diminished role is that the larger part is given to Christina Ricci. The summer camp subplot is far and away the best, and Ricci is a demonic delight. She has a lot to work with: a nerdy would-be boyfriend; the unbearably up-with-everything camp counselors; a debutante rival (Mercedes McNab, who played the Girl Scout in the first film). Ricci spits out her lines with comic venom, and provides most of VALUES' highlights.
The easiest conclusion to reach about ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES is that it will probably please those it was made to please, the same folks who brought over $100 million to THE ADDAMS FAMILY. If you didn't like the original formula, there's little to inspire a change of heart the second time around. Cheers to Christina Ricci, but I hope her contract doesn't demand another sequel. She deserves better.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 uses of "ooky": 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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