The Addams Family

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: November 22, 1991

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

57	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Joe Brown

A laugh-in-the-dark funhouse ride that provides nearly two hours of slightly sinister sight gags and Gothic giggles, is creepy, kooky, even altogether ooky enough to satisfy any Addams addict. Read full review

Marc Savlov

Truthfully, it's hard to imagine a better screen adaptation of this queer household. Addams would have been proud. Read full review

Jay Boyar

One reason that this movie works as well as it does is that everyone takes everything completely seriously. The world of the Addams family may be amusing to us, but to them it's just life. [22 Nov 1991, p.16]

Mick LaSalle

The story is on the weak side, and many of the jokes are just a bit flat. And yet there are enough cute bits and special-effects surprises that it will probably be worth people's while, especially if they intended to see the movie in the first place. [22 Nov 1991, p.C1]

Susan Wloszczyna

Any qualms that The Addams Family movie might be more creaky than kooky quickly evaporate, like mist over a still-toasty cadaver. [22 Nov 1991, p.1D]

Towards the end of the ride you are ready to get off... but if ride films are your thing, you'll be surprised at how much you enjoy this, even if you don't remember much about it afterwards. Read full review

Bill Cosford

Uncle Fester, missing for 25 years, has mysteriously returned -- isn't enough to drive the picture. It's all one note, really. Lovely note. But just the one. [22 Nov 1991, p.G10]

John Hartl

How do you turn a collection of New Yorker cartoons into a feature-length movie? And avoid the one-joke nature of the early-1960s television series that first tried to put it into dramatic form? The answer to both questions: you can't. [22 Nov 1991, p.3]

EmpireAngie Errigo

Deliciously sick and delightfully cast. Read full review

Janet Maslin

The film's aimlessness and repetitiveness eventually become draining. And its small touches often work better than its more elaborate ones, like an extended party sequence that seems awkward and largely unnecessary. Read full review

Cathleen McGuigan

The plot is lame; the jokes are often broad, though if you have a weakness for dumb humor -- or you're under 10 years old -- you'll find them hilarious. [25 Nov 1991, p.56]

Owen Gleiberman

It might have helped had the film included a few more representatives of the straight world. As it is, there’s almost nothing for the family to play off. We’re shut up in that mansion right along with them, and the kookiness grows fatally quaint. Read full review

Roger Ebert

This is the kind of film that isn't as much fun to see as it is to hear about. Read full review

Time Out LondonStaff (Not Credited)

Barry Sonnenfeld setting a cracking pace in his directorial debut, but suggesting that Tim Burton might have given the film the edge it lacks. Ooky the Addamses may be, subversive they ain't; it plays like a paean to the nuclear family. Read full review

Clifford Terry

The Addams Family doesn't deliver. After a while the ghoulish one-liners and macabre sight gags grow repetitive - the sadistic/masochistic interplay between Morticia and Gomez particularly grows weary - as too much of the humor comes off like unbridled Late Mel Brooks. [22 Nov 1991, p.B]

Hal Lipper

It's all art direction and no content. There's nothing for Morticia and Gomez to do. [22 Nov 1991, p.7]

Jay Scott

The humour is based entirely on inversion which worked in your cartoons, and even on the TV show, but it's not enough to hold up a movie, even with the helping hand provided by a disembodied hand. [22 Nov 1991]

Staff (Not Credited)

Despite inspired casting and nifty visual trappings, the eagerly awaited Addams Family figures as a major disappointment. First-time director Barry Sonnenfeld never really gets past the skeletal plot, which plays like a collection of sitcom one-liners augmented by feature-film special effects. Read full review

Jay Carr

Ultimately, the film's self-censoring will to sweetness and innocence is even more fatal than the flimsiness of the plot. [22 Nov 1991, p.33]