The Addams Family

Deliciously sick and delightfully cast.

They're creepy and they're predictable? Mysterious and rather tame?

An extended collection of one-liners and not much more.

Despite inspired casting and nifty visual trappings, the eagerly awaited Addams Family figures as a major disappointment.

The film's aimlessness and repetitiveness eventually become draining.

More than merely a sequel of the TV series, the film is a compendium of paterfamilias Charles Addams's macabre drawings, a resurrection of the cartoonist's body of work. For family friends, it would seem a viewing is de rigueur mortis.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld strikes a tickling balance between the ordinary and the utterly bizarre. And the editing by the celebrated Dede Allen is split-second sharp.

While the plot of the film is formulaic in structure, The Addams Family finds its success in the culmination of all its parts.

Like early Tim Burton, the movie mixes Gothic flamboyance and grisly wit in a satisfying tribute to weirdos.

It may mostly be cosmetic, but this release is a reminder that some stories are lightning in a bottle, capturing a cast and a concept that works only once in a generation, and stand the test of time.