Genndy Tartakovsky's Hotel Transylvania

[Hal2001]

Here's the link to the published version of my review in my column at The Richmond Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/movi...transylvania-1



http://www.examiner.com/article/movi...transylvania-1

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

“Hotel Transylvania” is the latest release from Sony Pictures Animation, the same people who have brought us such films as “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “Arthur Christmas,” and most recently, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.” Looking back at their past releases, you can notice a trend. These films have had interesting animation and some pretty good vocal talent involved, but they’ve been lacking in the one place that’s the most important: the story. Unfortunately, with “Hotel Transylvania,” the trend has been allowed to continue.

It tells the story of Dracula (Voice of Adam Sandler), who has had a hotel built where monsters can take refuge from the dangerous humans who would hunt them down. His daughter, Mavis (Voice of Selena Gomez), is about to have her 118th birthday, so all of her family friends have shown up including Frankenstein (Voice of Kevin James), Wayne (Voice of Steve Buscemi), The Invisible Man (Voice of David Spade), and Murray (Voice of CeeLo Green).

Mavis is particularly excited about this birthday because this is the year that her father promised her that she could go explore the outside world. However, thanks to a little stunt her father pulls meant to reinforce the danger of humans, she begins to change her mind about leaving. Everything seems to be going well for Dracula, that is, until a human, Jonathan (Voice of Andy Samberg), happens to stroll into the hotel. In order to prevent a panic among his guests, Dracula disguises Jonathan as a monster. However, it’s not long before Jonathan and Mavis hit it off, something that causes plenty of panic for Dracula.

The film starts off well, presenting an interesting scenario of a young man coming upon a hotel for monsters who are extremely terrified of humans. This makes you think that several different zany things could happen, but sadly, the writers don’t take advantage of it, causing the film to lose its way after the first act. In a sense, it felt as though they were stalling until it was time for the ending to roll around.

It certainly doesn’t help that the third act it leads into is a bit unbelievable. This is one of those standard boy meets girl stories, so of course there has to be something that makes you think that they won’t end up together. This is where it hits a bit of a problem as the method the writers choose ends up feeling forced and once again it feels like the story stalls before the ending we all now has to happen occurs.

The film isn’t all bad though. It has a number of rather amusing moments, though some of these do sink a little too far towards lowbrow, but with Sandler involved, you know it’s got to go there at least a little bit. There’s a rather amusing running joke where the humans try to imitate Dracula with the usual “bleh,” something he says he never says. This hits a peak near the end with a well-placed jab at the “Twilight” franchise, a series which has helped destroy the image of the classic vampire.

It also features a talented voice cast. Sandler does a satisfactory job as the Count, though even his voice starts to get annoying after having to hear it for this long. Gomez does a pretty good job as his daughter, bringing all the necessary emotion to the role. Samberg ends up being the funniest of the lot as the wandering human who happens to find the hotel. It’s just a shame that the story didn’t live up to the talent involved.

One last indicator that the writers didn’t really know what to do with the story was having the film end with a completely unnecessary song where the filmmakers unfortunately allowed both Sandler and Gomez to sing along with CeeLo Green. When you have as talented a singer as Green, why throw in two people who can’t sing particularly well to muck it up?

In closing, I’ll add that this screening was in 3-D, an entirely unnecessary fad that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. “Hotel Transylvania” is another one of those films that’s pretty dark in the first place, so why bother making a dark film even darker with 3-D that’s completely unnoticeable? I even lifted my glasses up a few times during the film to see just how bright the film was supposed to be. The difference was extraordinary. So if you do end up choosing to see the film, at least do yourself the favor of seeing it in 2-D, though sadly it won’t help fix the film’s other problems. 2.5/4 stars.