Hotel Transylvania 2

Image credit: Bloody Disgusting

It’s a blessing and also a curse to have a guilty pleasure in animated movies. On the one hand, it means that I don’t miss out on classic and beautiful, artistic, wondrous pieces of cinema like Disney movies, Pixar films, and the magic of Studio Ghibli. On the other hand I (8 times out of 10) am attracted to practically any animated feature and it’s inevitable that I will sit down and watch a few duds. Hotel Transylvania 2 is one such dud.

The film takes place after Dracula’s daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) marries human slacker Jonathan (Andy Samberg), becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a half-human half-vampire baby. When little Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) fails to display any vampiric characteristics, Mavis decides it might be safest if they move away from the hotel and her monster family. Afraid to lose his daughter, Dracula tricks Mavis into letting him mind Dennis for a few days while she and Jonathan check out California, in an attempt to scare him into his vampiric tendencies.

I’ll admit that I haven’t seen the first movie (the second was on Netflix and I was bored, which led us here), but you can pretty much get the gist of it from this film. While the messages about acceptance are powerful, and relevant, this is far from a successful family movie. The story is simple, clichéd, and paced like a kitten trying to catch a laser beam. There is no room for the characters to naturally grow, they all have haphazard epiphanies and grow dramatically within the space of five minutes, very gothic.

The brunt of the movie is devoted to sight gags rather than story, which would be fine if the gags were funny however, they prove to be predictable, overly childish, and generally dumb. While the characters themselves are kind of cute, there is nothing inherently unique or endearing about them and the same can be said for the ‘drama’ that happens in the third act.

Image credit: Movieweb

While the animation is solid with a good cast of voice talents to match, Hotel Transylvania sings a little flatly in comparison to all the other wonderful family films that are out in the universe.

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky, 2015

Cast: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman, Dana Carvey, and Mel Brooks