Straight off the bat I thought this was a bad idea. I thought how could anyone mess with the perfectly dark performance of Christina Ricci.
I remember watching the reruns of the original Adams Family when I was a kid and loving them. I loved the quirky darkness that was played on so well in that T.V show. So, when Tim Burton decided to take the Adams Family on, I thought - definitely, I'm up for that. He'd already won me over with the likes of Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands. Bring it on, I thought.
When the first film was released back in the early nineties, 1991 to be exact, I felt it was a perfect storm of mood, comedy and characters with the likes of Gomez played by the late Raul Julia, Morticia played Angelica Houston, Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fester and the amazing Christina Ricci as Wednesday Adams.
To me, and a hell of a lot of people, Christina Ricci, along with Tim Burton, created this believably bleak, dispassionate, intelligently dark little girl that people instantly warmed to. So obviously, I was really happy when she got more screen time in the sequel, Adams Family Values, which made her even more awesome in my opinion. But, had they got this wrong, I don't think the Netflix Wednesday would have been made at all.
So back to the new series of Wednesday. I was very sceptical. I'd only found out about two weeks ago it was even coming out and had already written it off as a heartless cash-grab. To be honest, I haven't enjoyed anything Tim Burton has done with Disney recently and thought this would typically be more of the same, outlandishly unreal, throw everything at the wall, including the kitchen sink and hope it sticks, lazily directed CGI vomit I had unfortunately grown accustomed to over the last two decades. So when I realised Disney had nothing to do with it and it was in fact on Netflix, well, I still wasn't that interested. Thankfully though, after watching The Twilight Saga New Moon (my wife's choice) with the kids, we let the credits roll and saw the trailer pop up for Wednesday. Not thinking much of it, I, with idle curiosity, decided to watch the trailer with my family and immediately we put on the first episode. Then the next one. Then the next and so on. You get the picture. Something wonderful had happened and I felt Tim Burton had found his mojo again.
We love this series! There, I've said it. It fun, the characters are great and interesting. The world feels like the films, and Jenna Ortega as Wednesday is fantastic to watch. She's dark, witty, sarcastic and devious. We also enjoyed the fact that it's a fun mystery. The perfect antidote to my recent Twilight or Harry Potter experience; at least for me anyway.
I've heard this has already been given the green light for a second series which everyone in my house very grateful for 😂 It's perfect for my 11 year olds and grownup enough for my wife and I to genuinely enjoy, with a fun balance of comedy and horror. I highly recommend it. I won't spoil anything, but the cameos are fun too.