The Addams Family is a quirky family tale that sets itself apart from its predecessors

This version of The Addams Family doesn’t want to be compared to its previous iterations, and sets itself apart with a fun mix of adult humor and message.

Starting in the late 1930s as a series of cartoons for The New Yorker, Charles Addams’ fictional macabre family, The Addams Family, has endured for over 80 years. The 1964 television show has a large cult following and it, in turn, inspired two highly popular feature films in 1991 and 1993. So how might a new take on the characters set itself apart in 2019? By going back to the beginning.

When Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan were announced as the directors of a new The Addams Family film, it raised eyebrows. The two previously helmed the grotesquely inappropriate animated feature Sausage Party that, coupled with online criticism about its voice cast being relegated to animation and not live-action, left this new take on the Addams clan with an uphill battle to climb.

But, in a surprising turn of events, The Addams Family is able to burrow itself into your heart because it doesn’t aim to be a live-action adaptation. The animated feature is a swirling mix of humor, balanced between the overtly adult and the childishly broad, whose quirkiness ends up offering an enchanting new take on the material.

Where the previous works have all started with the Addams family established – husband, wife, two kids, and the ghoulish Uncle Fester – this starts at the beginning. Gomez and Morticia (voiced by Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron, respectively) are heading to the altar at the same time an angry, pitchfork-wielding mob is coming for them. It’s a moment that feels bizarrely out of time considering the rest of the feature takes place in modern-day New Jersey but it’s one of several divergences from reality that you just have to roll with.

The couple move to an insane asylum in the Garden State where they eventually raise their children, Pugsley and Wednesday (voiced by Finn Wolfhard and Chloe Grace Moretz). The children are isolated from the world around them at the behest of their mother, who wants to avoid another angry mob. But when a suburban development drains their marsh and leaves them exposed, the family will have to make friends with their new neighbors.

The script’s main inspiration is the original Charles Addams comics, but there’s also a heavy emphasis on the ’60s television show. The Addamses are delightfully kooky but the insanity that they perceive as normal ends up being a prism with which to show how frightening conformity can be. The film does it a taste pointed in its message, most notably naming the suburb Assimilation, but it’s a theme that has always been part of the Addams brand. We love them because they’re unconventional and show us how boring convention is.

The scene-stealer of the film is Moretz’s Wednesday who, as a character, has always worked wonderfully with the Addams’ patented blend of dark humor aimed at more enlightened children. Moretz perfectly nails the deadpan tone while avoiding an outright monotone. When she’s calling out a catty girl she injects both terror and morose feelings into her delivery. Wednesday also gets the best references to other features, including the 1970s take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Her plotline dovetails with that of Morticia, though Theron doesn’t quite nail the same emotions in her line delivery as her on-screen daughter. She’s vampiric, but lacks the humor and warmth established by Carolyn Jones or Anjelica Huston in previous iterations.

Since this is directed by the Sausage Party duo there’s an assumption that the humor would flirt with the obscene and though it never gets quite to that level there are one-liners that will raise eyebrows and inspire chuckles, most notably involving Uncle Fester (voiced by Nick Kroll). He rounds out a host of Addams supporting players, including those voiced by Martin Short, Bette Midler, Catherine O’Hara, and Jennifer Lewis.

Kroll’s delivery is perfect for the movie and character, but there’s an unspoken implication that Uncle Fester might be a lecher and that, oddly enough, ends up being very funny. His bizarre attempt to make friends with the film’s villain Margaux Needler (a DIY show host voiced by Allison Janney) tempers things.

With a tolerance plotline, mother/daughter transformations, and the creepiness of Fester and the Addams relatives, Gomez and Pugsley are left with little to do. Their plot follows Pugsley as he goes through the Addams rite of passage known as the “mazurka,” essentially a complicated dance with swords. There’s a message there about fostering your child’s talents and the line between tradition and modernity but it gets lost in the stronger elements related to Wednesday.

Wolfhard’s voice is the most recognizable of the cast but his Pugsley doesn’t necessarily have definition as a character (a common issue with Pugsleys throughout the years, if we’re honest). Isaac certainly ups the accent work, going above and beyond how Raul Julia naturally spoke, but that’s about it.

As someone who initially despised this project, in the end I was won over by The Addams Family.

Its humor is understated and, at times, surprisingly adult. Wednesday and Morticia are a blast with Moretz’s vocal work running away with the production. More importantly, it captures why so many generations have come to claim this family as their own. It’s not meant to be your Addams family, but will inspire a new generation to love their deliciously “ooky” ways.