Video review: "The Addams Family"

File “The Addams Family” under “Reboots We Didn’t Need, But Aren’t Terrible.” At least they’re going in the opposite direction as Disney, which seems determined to do a live-action remake of every animated hit they’ve ever had -- even the crappy ones. (*Cough* *cough* “Mulan” *cough* *cough*.)

Here the 1990s comedies starring Raul Julia (may he rest in pieces) and Anjelica Huston, preceded by the 1960s television show, are revived as a kiddie cartoon flick.

It’s a good fit, since the premise is as cartoonish as it gets. A family of death-loving weirdos take up residence in the mansion on the hill, creeping out the neighbors with their 24/7/365 celebration of Halloween-esque themes.

Gomez (Oscar Isaac) is the smooth patriarch, though we get the sense his wife, austere Morticia (Charlize Theron), really runs the show. Son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) is an awkward people-pleaser, while dour daughter Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) has a studied, detached air to her. Nick Kroll does the voice of bald, super-creepy Uncle Fester.

It’s a nice voice cast, though Moretz stands out for her slightly formal line readings. I chuckled every time Wednesday spoke.

The plot is some contrived claptrap about getting the entire Addams clan to gather from all over the globe for Pugsley’s coming-of-age ceremony. (Which involves deadly sharp sabers, of course.) Allison Janney provides the voice of their nemesis, television home improvement host Margaux, marshaling the forces of shiplap and bright hues.

There’s a lot of emphasis on boingy action and throwaway jokes, some of which work and some that deserved to be thrown away.

I mildly enjoyed “The Addams Family,” though my kids loved it and yours probably will, too -- unless they’re weirdos who like ponies and rainbows and life-affirming stories.

It’s coming out with some nice bonus features. My favorite is “Charades with Thing,” an interactive game in which the bodyless hand invites you to guess what he’s miming. There are also deleted and extended scenes, a storyboard-to-final evolution of a scene, a rogues gallery of character profiles featuring each voice actor, two music videos and a throwback feature to the previous film and TV versions.

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Review: "The Addams Family"

“The Addams Family” was a great concept for a TV show, with such vivid, off-kilter characters, but I can’t recall a single episode if pressed.

It was a one-joke show, and later one-joke live-action movies: the Addamses are death-obsessed freaks and monsters who love darkness and decay. They’re the mirrored opposite of the standard American family, openly trying to kill each other instead of pretending to adore one another.

They’re a Halloween clan. Instead of embracing creepy stuff one night a year, they live it 24/7.

The two Barry Sonnenfeld pictures were a hit, but after Raul Julia (as patriarch Gomez Addams) died young no one wanted to continue the franchise. Anjelica Huston (un-maternal Morticia), Christini Ricci (dour daughter Wednesday) and Christopher Lloyd (the other one) as ultra-creepy Uncle Fester all milked good roles.

A quarter-century later the Addams are back as an animated movie with voices by Oscar Isaac, Charlie Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz and Nick Kroll (respective to how they’re listed above).

It pretty much hits all the notes you expect: familiar reprises of the main characters with a few noticeable twists; amped-up action scenes courtesy of the endless possibilities that come with computer animation; and some rote life lessons about the importance of family... even a murderous one.

We get a little of the family backstory, which sounds astonishingly similar to the "Hotel Transylvania" flicks: the monstrous clan was chased out of its ancestral home by torch-bearing villagers and set up shop in a lonely cliffside mansion in the worse place possible: New Jersey.

Cut to 13 years later, and they've never stepped outside the grounds of their haunted house, formerly an asylum, which comes complete with an evil spirit constantly moaning "Get out!" and trying to sever fingers with slamming windows or whatnot.

First son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) is preparing for his ritual passage into manhood, known as a Mazurka -- think bar mitzvah but with deadly saber dance moves. Gomez is fearful that his offspring just doesn't have the family goods.

Meanwhile, Wednesday yearns to find out what's beyond their fence, and discovers that an entire town has sprung up in the valley below. A blowhard home-improvement TV maven named Margaux (Allison Janney) runs the show there, a pink-and-green wonderland of tackiness that's borrowed straight out of "Edward Scissorhands."

Wednesday decides to attend the junior high school in the city, called "Assimilation," in case anything's too subtle for ya. She befriends Margaux's daughter, Parker (Elsie Fisher). The two become friends and join in a rebellion going in opposite directions, with Parker adopting a goth look and Wednesday adding unicorns and color splashes to her family's signature B&W shtick.

"Everyone knows pink is a gateway color," Morticia frets.

Moretz is terrific as Wednesday, giving her just the right lilt and formality in her inflections to always render her lines funny. Theron is good too as Morticia, who has no visible feet and floats around in a skinny black dress that hides spiders and other creepy-crawlies.

I noticed most of the men are drawn with thick, chocky bodies while the women usually have cartoonish spindly limbs and torsos. The opening sequence shows Mortician literally bolting and screwing herself into her gown, and I wish the filmmakers had thought about this stuff beforehand.

Thing is here, the body-less hand bounding about in a helpful way. In this iteration he actually has a small eye at the wrist, which is either a new thing or something I'd never noticed before. In one of the film's funnier throwaway bits, we learn that Thing has something of a foot fetish, which kind of makes sense when you think about it.

Giant butler Lurch (Conrad Vernon, also one of the directors) groans and serves, though he's got a bit of an eye-roll thing and has some decidedly fancy side interests. Cousin It (Snoop Dogg) shows up pretty late in the game, big pimpin' in a Cadillac and still indecipherable under all that hair.

"The Addams Family" was directed by Vernon and Greg Tiernan, who made the much-overrated "Sausage Party" together, from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman. My kids enjoyed it well enough, but it's cookie-cutter disposable entertainment that tries just hard enough.

Review: "Uncle Drew"

The idea for “Uncle Drew” came from a television commercial. You’ve seen those ads where NBA players (or athletes from other sports) dress up as old men, challenge young studs to a game, generating much ridicule, and then proceed to blow them off the court? Here’s an hour-and-three-quarters of that.

You may be appalled, but we’ve had movies adapted out of video games and theme park rides, so why not a clever bit of commercial video? I mean, those Neanderthals wearing business suits got a whole TV show.

Despite, or perhaps because of its progeny, it turns out that “Uncle Drew” is a big bag of yucks. Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics plays the titular character, a legend of the New York City blacktop game who suddenly disappeared 50 years ago right before the finals of the legendary Rucker Park tournament. Now he’s back to bring love to the game, and maybe teach a few life lessons along the way.

“Play the game the right way, and it fixes everything,” he practically purrs.

Lil Rel Howery is the ostensible main character, a pudgy little man named Dax who coaches the team. His own hoop dreams were shattered years ago when he had his game-winning shot blocked by Mookie (Nick Kroll), a taunting jagoff who’s white to boot. In the opening minutes Mookie steals his star player, Casper (Aaron Gordon) and his girlfriend, Jess (Tiffany Haddish), an annoying harpy who wasn’t really much of a loss.

The elders at the corner barbershop (JB Smoove and Mike Epps chief among them) urge Dax to seek out Uncle Drew, who’s more ghost than man these days. But he manages to track Drew down, see that his skills haven’t diminished much even at age seventy-something, and talks him into rounding up his old teammates for one last go.

In point of fact, Dax barely has to make his pitch before Drew has agreed, so we sense he’s just been waiting for this chance at redemption.

The middle part of the movie is the familiar “putting the band back together” bit, as we encounter old pals in their far-flung situations and sign them up. They cruise around in Drew’s ‘70s-era van, complete with shag carpeting and a bench area in the back he refers to as “the Boom-Boom Room.”

Given his reputation with the ladies, it’s an operational, rather than aspirational term.

Old rivalries are revived, too, especially with Big Fella (Shaquille O’Neal) -- that’s actually the only name he’s ever given -- a mammoth man who now teaches martial arts to kid and wears a ridiculous salt-and-pepper fu manchu goatee and vaguely Wolverine-esque afro. Shaq is an entertaining presence, and even pokes fun at his earlier film roles.

Chris Webber is Preach, who’s now a bent-over reverend with a gravely growl and a bad prostate. Reggie Miller plays Lights, a shooter who’s gone blind but still believes every shot is going to be a swish. Lisa Leslie is Betty Lou, Preach’s cantankerous wife who doesn’t like him running off, and gives chase. She’s suspiciously tall for a reverend’s wife.

The age makeup they all wear varies in credibility. Shaq and Reggie look pretty much the same as they normally do, though they’re closer in age to the fictional Drew than the actual Kyrie. It took me a long time to place Webber as Preach. Best of all is Nate Robinson as Boots, who I actually took to be some 1970s NBA star at first.

Boots hasn’t spoken or stepped out of his wheelchair in a year, but this is the sort of movie with convenient miracles in the offing. Erica Ash plays Boots’ very cute and available granddaughter.

Directed by Charles Stone III (“Drumline”) from a script by Jay Longino, “Uncle Drew” boasts heaping helpings of laughs and dazzling court moves. The talkie scenes drag, and Irving as Drew only seems to have one speed: raspy wisdom interspersed with calling whoever he’s talking to “youngblood.”

The simple fact is I enjoyed spending time with these characters. It’s ridiculous to think that men who’ve seen three-quarters of a century can break ankles with crossovers or dunk like Dr. J. But then it’s hard to believe they could make a whole film out of a TV commercial and actually have it turn out as good as this.

Plus, this is the movie in which we get to see the glory that is Shaq’s ass. Wait, let’s hashtag that: #Shaqass. I think each cheek is bigger than Danny DeVito.

Video review: "Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie"

When a mainstream movie doesn’t get screened for critics, it’s usually an indication the studio knows it has a dog and its hands, and figures no publicity is better than bad publicity. They’re wrong, of course: My own observation is that films that get dumped into theaters with no fanfare or press disappear even quicker than those that got negative reviews.

But every now and then, a decent movie gets this treatment for mystifying reasons. Lately, many of these have been family- or kid-oriented fare like the wonderful “Paddington” from a few years ago.

“Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” isn’t quite that good, but it’s an amusing and rather clever kiddie flick that had my two boys, ages 4 and 6, rolling with laughter almost the entire time. And even grumpy old dad chortled not a little.

The clever set-up is that the two protagonists, George and Harold (voices by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), are fourth-grade cut-ups and budding cartoonists themselves. They spend most of their time creating comic books and pulling pranks on Mr. Krupp, their anger-absorbed principal. One of their favorite subjects is Captain Underpants, about a super-powered hero who only wears a cape and his undies.

Through a little hypnosis, the boys actually convince Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms) that he is Captain Underpants, leading to much hilarity as their tubby educator galivants about town in his tighty-whities. Of course, he eventually wakes up and wonders where his clothes are. Later, the Captain manages to obtain actual super-powers to go with his delusion.

Nick Kroll provides the voice of Professor Poopypants, a substitute teacher who turns to evil villainy out of consternation for mockery of his name. It all builds up to a dizzy battle with giant robots and such.

The animation has a deliberately simplistic sort of sheen, interspersed with cut scenes consisting of motion comics from the boys’ illustrations.

Based on the novels by Dav Pilkey, “Captain Underpants” didn’t do so well at the box office. (See section above re: no vs. bad publicity.) It’s definitely worth a look on video, though, as it’s chock-full of boy-centric humor and gross-outs.

Maybe if we do get a sequel, it won’t try to fly under the radar.

Bonus features are pretty good, anchored by six making-of featurettes, including one where Hart and Helms pull real-life surprises on fans. There are also deleted scenes, gallery of stills, music videos including one with theme song writer/performer “Weird All” Yankovic, and a “Tightey-Whitey Q&A with the Stars.”

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Review: "Sing"

“Zootopia’s Got Talent.”

That was the three-word review provided by a pal who saw the movie before me, and it sums up “Sing” better than I could.

This is a breezy, glitzy animated jukebox show in which movie stars play singing critters getting together for a big talent competition. It will probably win with most children, especially those who like pop songs and want to hear Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and the like belting them out through the mouths of pigs and porcupines.

Grownups may find it a bit tedious -- I came awfully close to catching a few Zzzs during our screening -- but it builds a good head of steam toward a showstopper finale.

Written and directed by Garth Jennings, who also provides the voices of one of the minor characters, “Sing” is set in an all-animal metropolis very much like the one in “Zootopia,” where humans are neither seen nor heard, and may not even exist in this world.  (Christophe Lourdelet is co-director.)

Matthew McConaughey, who turns out to be a real vocal chameleon between this and his voice acting in “Kubo and the Two Strings,” plays Buster Moon. He’s a koala bear charlatan who runs a grand old theater that’s had one big failure after another.

McConaughey plays Moon light and schmaltzy, employing the upper register of his voice without a hint of that famous Texas drawl. Moon is an old-school “let’s put on a show” type with a heart of gold, but isn’t above stiffing contractors and a dab of flim-flam.

With the bank threatening repossession, he comes up with an idea for a huge singing contest using local unknowns. Scraping together his last bit of cash, he instructs his elderly iguana secretary to put out flyers advertising a $1,000 prize, but through some slapstick action it gets turned into $100,000. Soon every critter in town who thinks they can warble worth a darn is beating down his door.

McConaughey doesn’t get past humming, but there is a great deal of singing, both old standards and a few new tunes. Some of the actors we already knew could sing -- Johansson, Seth MacFarlane. But it’s a treat to hear Reese Witherspoon, as hectored porcine housewife Rosita, fry up some bacon and serve it with style.

Pop singer Tori Kelly plays Meena, an elephant who takes a job as stagehand because she’s too shy to show her talent. Johansson is Ash, a surly teen porcupine rocker who gets to step out of the shadow of her controlling boyfriend. MacFarlane voices Mike, a streetwise mouse who dresses, behaves and sings like he stepped right out of Sinatra’s Rat Pack.

The real sensation is Taron Egerton, the affable Brit you may remember from “Eddie the Eagle” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” He plays Johnny, a Cockney gorilla who comes from a clan of career criminals, and doesn’t want to follow in the family footsteps. Egerton’s got some truly golden pipes, soft and silky.

There’s really not a whole lot of narrative ambition to “Sing.” Each character has a mini arc to travel along, and we know where they’re going to land two minutes after we meet them. But the songs are nice to listen to, the creatures are crazy cute and your kids will be entertained for 108 minutes.