[7.5/10] *The Addams Family* is a live action cartoon, and I mean that in the best way. Everything relies on exaggeration, slapstick, and the sort of over-the-top presentation that typically only finds purchase in the realm of animation. There isn’t the faintest wisp of reality to the goings on here, and somehow, that’s what makes it great.

Maybe it’s because, for all the glorious lunacy on display, there *is* a wisp of humanity in the story. The plot is rapid-fire and prone to detours, but the basic premise is simple. The titular family of macabre weirdos is sitting on extraordinary treasure. Their weasley lawyer and his conniving loan shark plot to bilk them out of it. And the fulcrum of the con is Gordon, the loan shark’s *Mommy Dearest*-esque son and dumb muscle, who’s sent to pose as the Addams patriarch’s long lost brother.

That’s already a pretty wacky premise to begin with. Throw in puzzling labyrinths where the dubloons are stored, flimsy stories about getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and Gordon’s mom posing as a German psychiatrist to help grease the wheels of her son’s deception, and you have a bonkers setup for a “fish out of water, chucked into a cauldron” story.

But somehow, against all odds, the damn thing works! Maybe it’s because the narrative is mostly a skeleton to attach the Addams’ zany hijinks to. Much of the time, *The Addams Family* is less a movie than a series of sketches. Gomez does some florid romancing of Morticia. Wednesday tries to pulverize Pugsley. Grandmama cooks up spells; Lurch lurches; and Thing skitters about. Occasionally, the neighbors stop by to be tortured or terrified, or the Addams enter the “real” world to freak out the normies. Most of these interludes have only the barest connection to the plot, but they’re entertaining, so they get a pass and, better yet, capture the episodic spirit of the original comic strip.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t exactly the cleverest or most trenchant humor you’ve ever seen in your life. Much of this is just slapstick, with silly dances, loopy sword fights, and all manner of cartoony smacks and bonks for good measure. A solid third of the jokes fall into the category of “You are an [insert something that would normally be horrible or ghastly]...we love that about you!” But the turn works, and the performers realize these bits with such flair, that you’d have to be made of stone not to be charmed by it.

That’s the thing, everyone in the movie is set to 110% and it works. Christopher Lloyd gives the most maximalist performance ever committed to screen as Gordon/Fester, mugging and flailing and generally hamming it up to never ending delight. Raul Julia imbues Gomez with irrepressible passion and enthusiasm. Anjelica Huston is no shrinking violet as Morticia, but brings an exaggeratedly mannered performance that gives her life beyond the iconic look. And a young Christina Ricci proves her acting bona fides as a tyke, finding notes of sweetness and sharpness in Wednesday's deadpan demeanor. Everyone on screen is having fun, and it shows, which livens even the most broad and random flight of fancy in the film.

The same flair extends to the special effects and production design. Thing remains a startling effect even three decades later. The little hand is so well integrated into the rest of the proceedings, and director Barry Sonnenfeld and company find such clever gags for its prodigious digits, that it may as well be the movie’s breakout character. Cousin It, a sentient, squeaking, clump of hair, is silliness incarnate. And everything from dramatic slides down a dungeon to books that contain the weather give the special effects team to bring this cartoon to life without skimping on the larger-than-life qualities from the medium that launched it.

And good lord, the sets and costumes and make-up are darkly divine. The Addams’ house is a wonderland of gothic absurdity. From Fester’s burlap sack springiness to Morticia’s “beautifully embalmed” visage, every character cuts a memorable figure. If you are a goth kid, or even just a wannabe like yours truly, you’ll appreciate the penchant for the grim and grisly turned into the comic and whimsical, which makes the chance to spook the squares so satisfying.

For all the dark (if over-the-top) comedy, in *The Addams Family*, it’s a surprisingly wholesome film. It’s strange, to say the least, that you have to go back to a loopy nineteen-nineties comedy to find a long-married husband and wife who are still very much in love and continually supportive of one another. The emotional launchpoint of the film is Gomez missing his brother and lamenting that they became estranged. Even the brief, wacky “riches-to-rags” section of the film is chiefly about the Addams sticking together through hard times. As theoretically dark as the movie’s trappings are, and as played to the cheap seats as its humor is, the story is downright heartfelt.

That goes double for Fester’s arc here. It’s a tale of becoming the mask. He pretends to be the long lost relative of these strangelings for purely mercenary reasons, only to find that he belongs with them. The way he connects with the family through teaching and inspiring Wednesday and Pugsley, the fraternal bond he forms with Gomez, the acceptance he finds among the freaks in contrast to his domineering mother, are all endearing as all hell. Again, however macabre or zany *The Addams Family* gets, there’s an undercurrent of sweetness that makes you want to root for these spooky oddballs.

That may be how it justifies so much lunacy and bizarre mishmashes of con artist plots and Halloween horrors. On the one hand here (sorry, Thing), everyone is simply having fun, reveling in the morbid and grotesque in a way that makes it cuddly and amusing. The full-throated, unapologetic embrace of the cartoony gives the film a tone that works, even as it departs from anything approaching reality.

But on the other hand, that fun is infectious, rooted in something affectionate, and even welcoming, to where when Fester decides to give up his old life and join the Addams family, you understand why, and wouldn’t mind coming to see ‘em yourself, if only for ninety minutes at a time.