Kinda stuck in the middle on this one. Being a MASSIVE Addams Family fanboy I do love this entire concept. All the visuals are exactly as I would have envisioned, although it does all look a bit too close to other franchises like 'Harry Potter', and in places like certain (Burton) movies. Yes it all looks lavishly goth and kooky, but at the same time, it also lacks originality. Too many Burton touches taken from previous Burton projects methinks.
Casting wise it's a bit of a miss for me. Whilst Jenna Ortega is solid as Wednesday (although, dare I say, not quite odd-looking enough and too attractive, for us goth folk at least), Luis Guzman is way too fat to be Gomez in my opinion. He kinda has the look, but Gomez is supposed to be a relatively fit and dashing Casanova type. Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't have the right look, or cheekbones, and simply isn't a good actor (just remained famous for marrying Michael Douglas essentially). Isaac Ordonez has the chubby looks of Pugsley, but is way too tall, slim, and generally good-looking. Lurch looks like a crappy Halloween party makeup job. Whilst Fred Armisen is too slim for Fester, but looks okay. The rest of the cast are your standard bunch of young pretty actors and, now, out-of-date Hollywood stars looking for comebacks, or just old Burton movie cast stars.
Plot wise it's all a bit generic really. The entire series is set at Nevermore Academy, which is essentially Hogwarts, with practically all the same types of fantasy characters you would expect from any number of young people's fantasy fluff these days (Narnia, Golden Compass, Percy Jackson etc...). They've got werewolves, sirens, invisible people, witches, Hyde monsters, shape shifters, people that control the elements, zombies, vampires etc...I mean, I get why these characters would exist in this universe, but we've seen all this before many many times. This ENTIRE concept has been done to death now, and frankly, the bad CGI does not help matters.
A nice dark, macabre, occult theme running through it, but the inclusion of lighthearted comedy and (at times) quite gory horror, doesn't quite sit well, with me at least. This modern option to try and make things more gritty isn't all that. But the fact that all the other students at the academy seem to have incredible powers leaves Wednesday and the Addams gang looking a bit useless. I guess that's why they had to give Gomez and Pugsley these electrical superpowers, which was dumb. The fact Wednesday eventually gets an invisible friend and she still can't work it all out was also pretty daft. I was also amazed at just how many events this academy has throughout this series. It felt like every episode had some kind of big party/gathering/celebration or was leading up to one (the production and costume costs must have been high for this). This would also inevitably lead to some kind of Wednesday plan to thwart someone coming to fruition. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
I found myself wanting to see more Addams and less of everything else really. Really wanted to go to the Addams house! The whole monster murder mystery aspect is too tired, too Scooby-Doo, and all too easy to work out really. Making a TV series out of it kinda helps with the suspense and allows more character and world building; but that world is generic fantasy guff with generic monsters. It almost comes across like an old Saturday morning cartoon ('Gravedale High' anyone?), just with some minor horror elements. You could replace everything here with superheroes and not change a thing.
The first series didn't really grab me to be honest. The story just didn't really engage me and was too cookie-cutter. The second series did feel a bit more interesting strangely enough. Again the plot wasn't anything amazing but it felt a bit more exciting. Overall it's hard to pinpoint where I sit here. I did like this series as a whole, but there's a lot that is cringe and any sense of originality has been buried deep in the murky depths. I can't help but feel this is a simple reskin of many other similar projects we've seen over the years, but with the Addams characters stuck on top. You could easily remove the Addams clan and insert anyone else, it wouldn't make any difference. I really did expect something a bit more freaky and bizarre from Burton surrounding this franchise. Heck! Even the 90's movies were more original than this. Maybe he should have stuck to the stop-motion animated idea.
6/10
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