The result, if you've seen the first effort, is utterly predictable throughout since the whole conception is stymied by the fact that this is a black comedy designed for a PG certificate, and thus only a very pale shade of gray.

| Sep 22, 2022

Addams Family Values is a rare comedy sequel that actually improves on the original, and the reason, I suspect, is that Rudnick, who wrote the screenplay, has been allowed to run wild.

| Sep 22, 2022

Addams Family Values is a slick, witty and mischievous delight, and one of those rare sequels which surpasses its predecessor. Not that the latter was a difficult task.

| Sep 22, 2022

While this nudge-nudge deadpan style is skillfully adopted by Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston, most of the other actors just flounder.

| Sep 22, 2022

[Director Barry Sonnenfeld] keeps the proceedings moving at a quick pace, which helps carry the story over its thinner spots. The acting of the top-notch cast also helps.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 22, 2022

The writing in fact is much sharper on the sequel than it was on the first film and the laughs for those so disposed more frequent.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 22, 2022

The title is apt. Using those morbidly sensual cartoon characters as pawns, the new movie Addams Family Values launches a witty assault on those with fixed ideas about what constitutes a loving family.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 21, 2022

It's great to have a stronger plot this time around. But the film's secret weapon is still its shrewd casting, from the ideal (if underused) Huston and Julia to Cusack's killer kewpie.

| Sep 21, 2022

The problem: As with the original, we spend too much time inside the Addams family mansion and not enough time outside with family members mixing it up with regular folk.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 21, 2022

The film at least has a consistent enough parade of one-liners and singleton gags to keep the laugh-per-minute ratio acceptably high. And Christina Ricci should get a film of her own.

| Sep 21, 2022

Addams Family Values is a tour de farce of black humor. But there are so many sick jokes in this sequel, you may feel overdosed... What keeps the film from turning repulsive is the clear affection that the family has for each other.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 21, 2022

Unfortunately, while some of the jokes are a scream, the lag time between them seems to get longer and makes the whole film drag.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 21, 2022

Surprisingly, Addams Family Values really is a valentine to family values. It's too tamed, too pervaded by a will to domestication, too much of an excursion into the blandly predictable to be really interesting.

| Sep 21, 2022

"Values'' is not so much a case of trying to be ooky, kooky, creepy again as trying to be clever, nasty, smarmy. Surprisingly often it works, probably because of screenwriter Paul Rudnick.

| Sep 21, 2022

Everything is in place for the sequel to the Addams Family to proceed as another catalogue of subversion of American family values. But something has gone wrong. Anti-Wasp it is; funny it isn’t.

| Sep 21, 2022

An uneven affair, then, but at a time of year when funny films with a touch of the perverse are so hard to come by, no one should ignore the Addams family's contribution to pre-Christmas cheer.

| Sep 21, 2022

Huston and Julia make a deliciously decadent couple, still madly in love after years of matrimony. Barry Sonnenfeld's direction is efficient, assisted by Ken Adam's outré production design.

| Sep 21, 2022

The film does not know when to stop, has little idea of how to begin, and moves forward by a process of "Quick, who's got the next gimmick?" jolts and nudges.

| Sep 21, 2022

It is both a funnier and more confident film. Rather than trying to play off the expectations of television viewers, the filmmakers only concern themselves with the previous movie: Topping it was no problem.

| Sep 21, 2022

Uneven as it is, Addams Family Values is considerably more enjoyable than its predecessor. At this rate, if there's a third installment, it'll be a knockout. Or at least a TKO.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 11, 2013