Addams Family Values review.
As we said in our review of The Addams Family, there is a better movie in these characters. Luckily, we only had to wait two years to get it. Addams Family Values brings the family back for a more entertaining, more fully realized iteration of the franchise. Unfortunately, this is the last version of these characters that we would get. But they make it memorable.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Addams Family Values
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Written by Paul Rudnick
Starring Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack and Christina Ricci
Addams Family Values Review
The Addams Family arrived in 1991 with a perfect cast and not much else. Addams Family Values followed two years later with the same great cast and a better script. The sequel benefits from the existence of the first film…as all sequels do. The problem with the first movie is that it doesn’t take any time to introduce the characters or the world they inhabit. Addams Family Values can use the whole original movie as its introduction.
Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) are having trouble getting their older children to accept the arrival of their newborn baby. They hire Debbie (Joan Cusack) as a nanny unaware that she is a serial killer looking to marry Fester (Christopher Lloyd) and take the family fortune. She gets the other children shipped off to summer camp where they perform a Thanksgiving play in the summer for some reason. Unfortunately for Debbie, Fester proves difficult to get rid of.
Addams Family Values is simply a much funnier movie than its predecessor. The Addams Family relied solely on the chemistry of its leads to get by. To be fair, it did take them an impressive distance. This sequel utilizes its full cast better.
Wednesday (Christina Ricci) was the breakout star of the first movie, so it is no surprise that she gets more of the spotlight in Addams Family Values. She’s as glib and darkly comedic as ever. Forcing her character to interact with normal people in the bright outdoors of a yuppie summer camp is a brilliant stroke. Her faux turn towards happiness and culminating in sabotaging the oddly timed Thanksgiving play is a highlight of the movie.
She even has a love interest this time around. Joel (a young David Krumholtz) is also stuck at the summer camp and immediately falls for the morose Wednesday. His nerdy, frightened take is a great counterbalance to Wednesday’s confident, fearless character. Her brother Pugsley is also there. Other than his joyful singing of the line “eat me” while dressed as a turkey for the play…there still isn’t much to his character.
Joan Cusack’s Debbie is a perfect addition to the cast. Cusack always delivers but her crazed murderous Debbie, frustrated at her inability to kill Fester, is a career highlight. Lloyd is even better in Addams Family Values than he was in The Addams Family. His Fester takes so much joy in Debbie’s attempts to murder him. He sees it as the ultimate foreplay.
The only downside to the storyline is that it forces Values to retread some of the same ground as the first one. Not only does the bad guy’s plan revolve around the Addams family fortune, but Fester once again ends up on the outs with his brother and the family. This time is more against his will…but we’ve already been there and done that.
Gomez and Morticia get shortchanged compared to the first movie. Despite sharing the screen time, Julia and Huston are as iconic as ever in these roles. Most of their efforts here are spent dealing with the possibility that newborn Pubert may be, gasp, normal.
Unfortunately, Julia was sick at the time of filming and would pass away within a year of the film’s release. Knowing what he was dealing with while watching Addams Family Values makes the joy that he brings to Gomez even more incredible.
Addams Family Values also has a much better ending than The Addams Family. The first movie ends with a tacked-on scene to explain away a necessary plot element. Values ends with a bang. Debbie ties the family to a bunch of electric chairs and prepares to kill them all. The scene is made doubly great by Debbie’s slideshow presentation explaining her reasoning for pervious murders, and the family’s gleeful reaction to the threat of being murdered. They’ve never seemed to like Debbie more. Inevitably, Debbie is reduced to a pile of ashes when the newborn Addams takes her down. Gleefully. He is an Addams after all.
Addams Family Values marked the final time we would see Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci play these characters. A third, direct to video movie, was produced but Julia had passed away and the others didn’t return. It had the same Lurch and Thing…but not the same heart and soul. We’ll be skipping that one and doing what the series should have done. Quit while you’re ahead.
Scare Value
This Addams Family Values review should make pretty clear that it is an improvement on the original in every way. The acting from top to bottom remains flawless. Joan Cusack brings a perfect over the top villain to match the zaniness of the family. Christina Ricci, Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston remain among the best casting you’ll ever find. Christopher Lloyd gets to have a lot more fun this time around. There’s simply a lot more story here than in the original…and all of it is better. It’s even tangentially a Thanksgiving movie!
4/5
