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Addams Family Reunion (Clam)
Customer Reviews
Rating:  - IT SUCKED!
If this silly thing would have let me give 0 or -ve stars, I would have. The whole movie was terrible slap stick comedy, and it didn't have any of the finess of the previous two movies. Gomez (Tim Curry) didn't even go wild over Morticia's french! (Daryl Hannah.) In fact, Morticia never spoke french. The only two good people in this were Morticia and Lurch. Pugsley didn't even look like pugsley. "Were not afraid (to hug), were contegous." -Addams Family Values
Rating:  - A gave it three stars... and that's being kind
Well, you MIGHT like it if you are a three year old that has recently suffered a head injury. The only reason I even rented this video was because my favorite actor, Tim Curry, was in this. And he didn't even look all that great, Curry should never grease down his hair. This movie is the stupidest thing you will ever see if you dare to watch it. And if you have any questions or comments on my review please e-mail.
Rating: - A true waste of money.
This movie is have been best done left unmade. While Tim Curry and Darryl Hannah are two of my favorite actors, they don't come near being the quintissential Addamses that the late Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston played. The writing is insipid and the plot is even more ubelievable and moronic than the original Addam's Family movies which, at least, had the saving grace of being just plain fun. Without Christina Ricci and the original move Lurch, it's just another movie to try to milk the success of the originals. If there were a way to give it no stars, I would. It was a direct-to-video release, and it's easy to see why, it would have been a total flop had it been released to the theaters. I was extremely disappointed and would have returned the movie for refund had I had that option.
Rating:  - A sequel best left buried...
Oh dear... It's a great pity to say it, but "Addams Family Reunion" is a major disappointment, and a sad end to what had been a very respected and maintained movie franchise.
It's a great pity, since there were some promising elements in the mix: some interesting casting, a passable script, and a decent budget, though I am at a loss to find any positive signs in the final product. The actors prove to be simply poor. Daryl Hannah proves woefully unsuitable for the role of Morticia, looking for all the world like a lost drag queen on a trick-or-treat jaunt. Her full-lips and blue eyes look dreadful with her make-up, and her over-tweezed eyebrows make her look cross-eyed in long-shot. She isn't helped by the abysmal hair-styling, either. She actually bears a strong resemblance to the original Charles Addams cartoons, though what's cute in a pencil sketch certainly isn't in a live action film. Failing to exhibit any sense of comic timing or chemistry with her co-star Curry, she seems particularly ill-at-ease, and frequently resorts to ludicrous face-pulling and head-jerking to gain attention. This is the weakest Morticia we've seen by a long stretch, and her inability to convince in the role deals "Addams Family Reunion" a serious blow.
By comparison, Tim Curry puts in a hearty performance, though he seems more interested in chewing the scenery and being loud than portraying Gomez. He never seems to 'become' the character, instead appearing to be Tim Curry-playing-Gomez. He does attempt a Hispanic accent for a couple of scenes but soon gets bored and reverts to Tim Curry-being-loud. Either way, though, he is completely out of sync with the rest of the cast and soon becomes distracting, with his badly-pitched performance ultimately annoying. Pat Thomas plays a manic Fester, clearly patterned after Jackie Coogan's interpretation. He tries hard, though is given little to do, and manages to irritate more than he entertains. Nicole Fugere proves wooden as Wednesday, physically bearing a greater resemblance to the possessed Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" than the established image of the Addams child. Lacking any semblance of innocence, the incongruity of the character falls flat, and the same can be said for Jerry Messing's Pugsley. For a series that has always thrived on strong ensemble casting, "Addams Family Reunion" makes the basic error of presenting a group of performers who wholly fail to ignite their scenes or mesh as a convincing group.
The script is adequate, though lacks the bite and wit of Paul Rudnick's work on the previous two movies. There is some unnecessary toilet humour, and a couple of overly predictable sequences. It lacks the sophistication and depth of the previous films, instead adopting a more cartoon, stunt-driven mood. The biggest problem is that too much of the action is analogous to past efforts. Practically everything seen here has been done before... and better. Morticia and Gomez's tango sequence, Pugsley's infatuation, Gomez's physical prowess, an army of Arian outsiders - at best they offer some friendly deja-vu, at worst they just remind of what a losing battle the producers of this film are fighting.
Dave Payne's direction is workmanlike, and renders most of the jokes flat. The lighting fails to embellish the dull settings with any life either. Visually, the film lacks impact, and the sets for the Addams mansion are particularly disappointing, occupying roughly the same space as Ken Adam's divine backdrops for "Addams Family Values", though failing to exude any of their style or beauty. The costume designs are low-rent copies of the wardrobes of previous movies, and the special effects are frequently atrocious, ranging from the laughable CGI attack dog Butcher, to the two-dimensional bolts of electricity. One redeeming aspect is Amotz Plessner's exemplary score, which is beautifully orchestrated, and offers this slip-shod effort undeserved cohesion.
Fundamentally though, nothing can disguise the fact that this is "Addams Family"-by-numbers; uninspired, unimpressive, and most importantly, uninteresting in the extreme. Go and check it out, but don't say I didn't warn you...
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