In 2019 , even the creepiest and kookiest movie characters must have origin stories. The new animated version of “The Addams Family” begins with the wedding of Gomez ( Oscar Isaac ) and Morticia ( Charlize Theron ) before they are chased off by angry villagers. Refugees, they wind up in New Jersey and make their home in an abandoned asylum where Thing gives Lurch tips on tickling the ivories. (The pair’s eventual duet on the rock-and-soul standard “Green Onions” is quite the sight.)

Although returning the Addamses to illustrated form brings them full circle (Charles Addams’s New Yorker cartoons long predated the 1960s TV series), this movie exists in the shadow of Barry Sonnenfeld’s live-action films from 1991 and 1993. As spot on as the casting of Isaac and Theron may sound, animation spares them from having to match the ingenious physical comedy of Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston.