I remember enjoying The Addams Family from Barry Sonnenfeld when it came out in 1991, as it brought back memories of watching the original show on TBS in the evenings. I loved Raul Julia’s portrayal of Gomez, the family patriarch, and consequently, I figured it was time for a revisit.

It’s definitely not aimed at me anymore. While there are fun nods to the original Charles Addams cartoons and fun interpretations of the familiar characters, it’s just not as entertaining as it was to me when it came out. It feels like it relies a lot on gags as opposed to narrative, and while there’s a story about family here, it doesn’t feel as macabre or fun as it should be.

Gomez is still lamenting the disappearance of his brother Fester some twenty-five years ago, but that doesn’t stop him from being passionately in love with his wife, Morticia (Angelica Huston) and a good father to his kids, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman). And no matter how clever and cultured, though slightly mad and dark, he is, Gomez is apparently very naive when it comes to money matters, something his accountant, Tully (Dan Hedaya) is looking for a way to exploit.

Enter Abigail (Elizabeth Wilson) and her adopted son, Gordon (Christopher Lloyd), who bears an incredible similarity to Gomez’s long-lost brother Fester.

Gordon, posing as Fester, infiltrates the family in the hopes of getting into he family vault and claiming the riches. When he’s given power of attorney as the older brother, he bans the family from the property, and they have to get regular jobs, even as they try to find a way to save their family and their home.

And of course, there’s a very obvious reveal about Gordon/Fester before the story’s end.

It’s light, it’s silly, and while it hints at some really dark humour, it never fully embraces it, and instead seems to play things a little too safe. But safe attracts families, and the film did well enough to warrant a sequel.

As much as Julia is wonderful here, this one really didn’t hold up for me. In fact, the entire cast is pitch-perfect, I simply would have liked the film to lean a little further into its dark comedy instead of playing everything so light.

It was cute and fun for the time, I still prefer the original show, but they definitely knew what they were doing with their casting. It works as a family film, and if that’s what they wanted, all good. I wanted a little more.