RageLite Review - Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster (Summer) Vacation (A Strange Halloween 2)

After 2 Hotel movies, they’ve run out of steam

And needed the action set someplace pristine

A mockery of sorts to Sandler’s film schemes

He films for a holiday with friends, so it seems

A major departure could shake up the game

New prospects for jokes, that aren’t kinda lame

Only the third film is yet to be seen

It’s a Monster Vacation on a Strange Halloween

Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation or Summer Vacation for the Americans reading this was released in 2018 and despite being released in the summer, usually a fairly crowded movie period, it earned $580m on an $80m budget. Why did Spider-verse only make $375m again?

New team of writers, Genndy Tartakovsky, who has experience with CW cartoons including favourites like Samurai Jack, he also directed both of the previous movies so knows this franchise pretty well, Michael McCullers joins him. His most recent other works include Boss Baby, *sigh* and he’s apparently working on Shrek 5, be prepared for when that comes out, eventually. Still, he seems to have experience with comedy which should be good for this, right?

When it comes to critical response, more critics seem to like it than the audience, that isn’t unheard of (see the reaction to The Last Jedi, which I still enjoy btw) but whilst the critic score averages out at 5.45/10, the audience score averages 3.2/5, so is this the best of worst one yet? Let’s take a look.

Dracula is feeling lonely, what with his wife having died over 100 years ago and everything. He knows that you only zing once, but wants to throw his hat in the ring of romance now that he doesn’t have to worry about his daughter. But Mavis believes he’s stressed out instead and arranges for the two to go on a vacation so they can relax as just a family

On the cruise, Dracula meets Ericka, a human he nearly instantly falls for. But between Mavis being painfully ignorant and later suspicious of her, to the fact that she is the latest of the Van Helsings and is trying to kill him and all the monsters on the cruise, is this love truly meant to be?

This film is truly perplexing to me, whilst we all mock it, the idea of this version of Count Dracula taking a vacation is actually not a bad one, Dracula trying to find someone new is not a bad idea, Mavis’ jealousy and things coming full circle, more of the family interacting, the idea that someone you’re hopelessly in love with secretly trying to kill you, these concepts are all ripe for jokes that are hilarious.

Unfortunately, this film feels exactly the same as the other Hotel Transylvania films, it doesn’t hit the mark when it comes to the humour. It’s not that it’s unfunny exactly, but the jokes are the same jokes we’ve heard in the other movies, and it does very little new with it.

Part of the problem is somehow all the known supporting characters from the Hotel are there, meaning we can continue with all their running gags, yippee. Couldn’t there have been a comedic subplot with Frank running the hotel. It’s only Wayne and Blobby who have any real funny moments anyway. What is Vlad is even doing there? Why couldn’t he run the hotel?

But yeah, a monster cruise could’ve been done with an entirely new cast, but the went the cheap route and used the existing ones. Maybe it’s budget, I don’t know, especially with the new locations but it struck me as a million missed opportunities. I guess there were jokes related to the new setting for them but few of them really landed for me.

Erika same deal, I wish her trying to kill him in secret was played up more. We do get a scene where Blobby blocks all her attacks, where Drac is none the wiser but the meal scene was such a missed opportunity, the best they got was a fart joke, that scene could’ve been hilarious but nope, low brow humour it had to be. And come on, there was no joke at all with her trying to kill them whilst underwater, she just backed away the moment she thought she might’ve been seen.

It’s funny because this film has arguably the most interesting plot but it takes much more of a backseat to all the jokes and set-pieces.

I didn’t really mention this ‘Zing’ thing in the first movie, but I thought it was dumb then, and it’s dumb now. 

The climax is honestly kinda hilarious, although your mileage might vary depending on how much pop music you can take. And there were other comedic highpoints, the Gremlin plane was funny, just about anything involving Wayne and his wife was hilarious. The opening was pretty good in establishing the conflict and being funny.

Hotel Transylvania: Monster Vacation isn’t without good humour, but it also has a lot of moments that could have been hilarious but weren’t and seems afraid to stray away from certain established running jokes. (“I do not say bleh bleh bleh” wasn’t funny in the first film and still isn’t) it still maintains the energetic animation the franchise is known for and a talented enough voice cast to make this enjoyable enough. But if you have the DVD do not watch all the special features, that was painful to sit through

Rating 65/100