The ‘Addams Family’ Animated Movie Is Just Kooky Enough to Watch on Hulu

I have a confession to make: I… don’t hate the 2019 Addams Family movie. I know—that’s a shocking reveal from me, A Critic, considering the lukewarm response the film got my peers on Rotten Tomatoes and this very site. It’s even more shocking considering how much of an Addams aficionado I am! I’ve written about my undying crush on John Astin’s Gomez, did a scary amount of research on the franchise’s history, regularly dress up as Gomez for Halloween and subject my cats to kooky cosplay, and nearly fainted when I got to interview the OG Gomez. I’m not a were-fan, either; I don’t just like The Addams Family during October. I’m a full-on Addams maniac 365 days a year. And yeah… I don’t hate the 2019 movie!

Trust me—there’s a lot to be annoyed about with the 2019 animated adaptation. It is, as Decider’s own “meh” review points out, a cookie cutter Hollywood CG-animated kid’s movie through and through. It’s loud and fast (87 minutes!) with A-list actors (Charlize Theron and Oscar Isaac!) turning in, I dunno, a day’s worth of work? It shoehorns in a very boilerplate lesson about, like, prejudice and individuality or something. It has pop culture references galore that feel incongruous with the Addams vibe. It unnecessarily gets into the origins of the Addams clan, answering questions that truly no one has ever asked. But… I don’t hate it!

I think my… I guess I could call it affection… that’s been simmering for this movie over the past year is proof enough that Addams die-hards like myself can truly extricate the good from a big pile of bad rubble. The good: some of the jokes! There are legitimate chuckles, maybe even a cackle, in this film—like Thing’s PG-13 search history or the sight of Pugsley skittering across the wall like a full-on horror demon. The movie even has some great “opposite day”-style gags from Gomez and Morticia, like the way they gleefully proclaim “We hit something!” after their hearse thuds over Lurch. These laughs hit hard with me—hard enough for me to overlook some of the incredibly on-the-nose choices that feel more bland than anything (Wednesday having hair nooses for pigtails, for example).

The worst thing about the movie is the presence of a moral, because every single kid’s movie has to be educational in some way to make it through the studio system. This is annoying, it’s cloying, it’s all together boring. It ignores the fact that the Addams Family franchise does not need a big, hot pink, neon flashing sign proclaiming “LESSON!” because the franchise has a lesson buried in its premise. The Addams family’s very existence is the lesson: love yourself. That’s it. That’s the low-key lesson in every single TV episode and live-action film. Be proud of who you are, celebrate your quirks, and go through life with an unyielding passion. Follow your bliss! That’s it, that’s the show! Previous Addams Family movies got that, and therefore allowed the family to go on kooky misadventures unburdened by the need to follow a lesson plan. The 2019 movie has the Addamses facing off against a planned community literally named Assimilation. It’s too much. I know it’s too much. But… I don’t hate this movie.

Why don’t I hate this movie, really? Because I measure an Addams iteration by one all-important metric: how great is its Gomez? Oscar Isaac’s Gomez is absolutely perfect. The design may take some getting used to, as it’s an update of Charles Addams’ original portly, pig-nosed papa and looks nothing like Astin or Raul Julia. This Gomez definitely doesn’t look like Oscar Isaac, which is a bit of a disappointment considering fans have been clamoring for Isaac to sport a mustache and tango for years. But! Isaac’s vocal performance is so dashing, so exuberant, so off-kilter that it works! He captures Gomez’s dashing, madcap glee, his zany zest for life. The scene where Gomez pops into a coffee shop and exits spooning a filter full of coffee grounds into his mouth is perfect.

If you avoided the 2019 Addams Family movie because it looked like another factory-assembled CG kids movie, reanimating a franchise of the past by striking it with bolts of modern pop culture references—well, you weren’t wrong! But now that the movie is on Hulu, subscribers can check it out for free—and, if you crave new Addams content as much as I do, you too might be able to find enough to love about this movie.

At the very least, fast-forward to the 80 minute mark and thrill at the shot-for-shot, frame-by-frame CG recreation of the original ’60s TV series. That moment right there? That was the movie speaking French to me.

Stream The Addams Family on Hulu