RageLite review - Hotel Transylvania (A Strange Halloween 2)

A Hotel for monsters, a novel idea

Told again and again, for all to hear

Comedians notorious brought into the fray

For a comedy, light-hearted, make of that what you may

3 films have been made, all profitable too

But those that rated it highly were few

So how do they rank among the films I have seen?

Find out as we resume A Strange Halloween

Hotel Transylvania was an idea created by Todd Durham, a comedy writer mostly known for skits and sketches. He created a bible with various idea for characters, plots, theme park rides and such, and sold it to Sony, who saw $$$ in this project and green-lit it. And despite the films themselves getting mixed reception and making but not Disney levels of money at the box office, the franchise, as a whole, has been massively successful, making billions of dollars for Sony.

So, for the first 3 weeks of A Strange Halloween 2 (I’m gonna keep my Luke Cage reviews going for now) we’ll be looking at what goes on in this hotel of Horror. Let’s start with the first film.

After the death of his wife at the hands of an angry mob, Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) constructs a hotel that would allow him and other monsters to stay, free from humans. The Count considers it a perfect way to protect his daughter, Mavis. 118 years pass and Mavis (Selena Gomez) is getting bored of being cooped up and wants to go see the world. In an effort to dissuade her, the Count constructs a dummy village filled with an angry mob, in the process though he attracts a boy named Jonathan into the Hotel, he and Mavis hit it on. Now Count Dracula is caught in the middle, not wanting to expose himself and not wanting the other guests to know that Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is a human, which would destroy the hotel’s reputation.

OK, look, on a second viewing I found this film pretty lacklustre, but I do have some positives. For one, Adam Sandler’s Dracula is pretty good. Sure, he’s not exactly the hero of this story, but his motivations are reasonably relatable, similar to Marlon from Finding Nemo, Adam Sandler seems to be putting in genuine effort and is also on occasion actually funny.

Mavis is also pretty likeable. You can make certain comparisons with her and a Disney princess but her dynamic with Dracula is sweet and you can feel the chemistry between her and Jonathan, even if you could argue the creep factor for a 118 year old woman loving an 21 year old man (kinda like Twilight if the genders were swapped)

The animation is one of the film’s strongest assets, since this film relies on movement, it’s good that the animation can keep up. The exaggerated styles and the semi-fantasy setting allow these fast movements to not look jarring. The film has a pretty satisfying aesthetic overall with the designs of the characters all being suitable and some nice visual gags here and there.

That being said, you’ll notice how I didn’t compliment the story much there, and that’s because this is a fairly drawn out liar revealed story. It’s trope that’s come to bore me, as the general plot beats happen again and again. I’ve got a <blank> and need to hide it is also a cliché a find a chore to sit through. But the bigger issue is just how little plot there is in this film.

The plots I’ve just described are fairly thin, so the movie has to do a bit to stretch them out. Unfortunately, this is where the comedy also dries up too. Most of the guest at the hotel have one joke, sometimes repeated but rarely with any real variation or payoff. The one exception, I guess to this is the werewolf, who’s main shtick is that he has tons of kids but as we approach the climax, one of his kids helps them tracking (to insane detail) and he eats a bunch of sheep.

But more often than not, the reliance is on the animation. The scene with the flying tables ultimately serves no purpose to the story, doesn’t deepen the characters in any way, nor does it provide that much in terms of comedy. It’s just a lot of fast-movement to keep the kids glued to their screens and that’s ultimately what a lot of scenes boil down to.

Hotel Transylvania is relatively tedious, but the well-done animation and likeable enough leads help improve the film beyond being hell to watch. It’s clear Adam Sandler gave his all here, I just wish the writers had done the same.

Rating 50/100