Rob Zombie’s reboot of The Munsters divided critics, but even positive reviews have pointed to a problem the film shares with other Netflix releases.
Rob Zombies The Munsters reboot has gotten mixed reviews, but a repeated chorus found in many critical articles proves the film reversed a common Netflix problem. Rob Zombies The Munsters intended to update the classic 1960s sitcom for a modern audience. The original iteration of The Munsters was a campy, cartoonish television comedy that mined sitcom adventures from a family of classic movie ghosts. As a fan of the original series, Zombie had wanted to reboot the property for years.
Unfortunately, the campy excesses of Rob Zombie’s take have divided the critics. The movie version of The Munsters changed some details of the show, but a lack of fidelity to the source material was not the most frequently mentioned issue. Negative reviews of the adaptation complained that Rob Zombie rebooted from The Munsters actually looked too much like the original television series, and the broad, campy humor felt dated 2022. Meanwhile, positive reviews of the film suggested this faithful reproduction of the corny ’60s series was the best of the Netflix-distributed Universal Pictures production. . However, both good and bad reviews of Rob Zombie’s The Munsters update point to another, deeper problem.
Almost every review of Rob Zombie’s film adaptation acknowledged the problem of The Munsters‘runtime is way too long. Even positive descriptions indicate that the plot of The Munsters is episodic and devoid of a clear continuous line, initially adding to the freewheeling comic tone, but serving no purpose in a nearly two-hour film. These friendlier reviews noted that: The Munsters did well in the tone and sense of humor of the original series, but pointed out that the sitcom’s goofy jokes worked better in the tighter, much shorter confines of television episodes. This recurring complaint means that: The Munsters might have been perfect as a six-episode limited series rather than a movie — the opposite of how many recent Netflix shows, from the Melissa Barrera-led survival thriller Keep breathing to the crazy Mike Myers vehicle the quintetwould have been perfect as standalone movies.
Why Zombie’s Munsters Had To Be A Show (Not A Movie)
Rob Zombies The Munsters has almost no storyline, but contains many fun segments that last seven to twenty minutes each. The chaotic plot feels like a hodgepodge of sitcom storylines merging into one another and with a running time of barely two hours, this gets old quickly. However, if the same resources, budget, and time were allocated to a zombie-directed revival of the original sitcom, The Munsters would have been an outright critical success factor. Since most of the negative reviews cite the endlessly long runtime as one of the biggest problems with The Munstersa sitcom revival in the form of six 20-minute episodes instead of one 110-minute movie could have performed much better with viewers.
Of the new characters introduced in Rob Zombie’s The Munsters reboot to the meandering plot, obviously the Netflix project should have been a show and not a movie. However, whether Netflix gets this message from the mixed critical response to? The Munsters can be seen.
