It's not going to be often that I can kill two birds with one stone and talk about a recent release AND count it under the 31 Days of Macabre Movies, but Hotel Transylvania is one such lucky case! Hotel Transylvania is a new computer animated children's film from Sony Pictures Animation, the same people who brought you Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and it's directed by Genndy Tartakovsky creator of Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack two amazing cartoon series from the Cartoon Network. Hotel Transylvania tells the story of what happened to all the movie monster's in recent history: Dracula has built a hotel to keep his daughter and all the monsters of the world safe and give them a paradise to relax with out having to worry about those evil humans. Everything is going fine until one day a young hippie, world-traveling human finds his way to the doorstep of the hotel.
First thing I'm happy to report is the voices aren't horrible or too distracting. This was actually my first concern about this film when I found out who was voicing the leads. Adam Sandler as Dracula is definitely not as bad as you would imagine, in fact for a majority of the movie I actually couldn't tell, there's little moments or things he'll say that will remind you it's him but it's not horrible. I completely forgot it was Andy Samberg voicing Jonathan the human, well that is until he starts singing. And there's also lots of really interesting voice choices sprinkled throughout the secondary cast including Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, and CeeLo Green, which all add something cool and interesting to the roles. My only real problem with the voice cast was Disney television star Selina Gomez voices Dracula's daughter Mavis and it's very evident from the beginning even with just her voice that this girl can not act. And it's unfortunate because I liked the character but having her as the voice was definitely a distracting element. (I guess I should have put her voice specifically under 'The Bad.')
I'm also happy to report that the film is really quite funny! Hotel Transylvania benefits from having Genndy Tartakovsky at the helm with all of his television animation experience because this film has a lot of really quick humor. Jokes fly by very quickly and there's enough of them that even though they may not all make you laugh there's enough that hit the mark, and when they do you'll be busting up, (even though if you’ve watched a television at all in the last month or so you may have already had some good jokes spoiled already for you.) Also as an added bonus if you're a fan of monster movies or horror films there's a bunch of jokes that I felt like I was the only one laughing in the theater at, so this movie takes care of you! And even though there’s a lot of humor, the film doesn’t dwell on just that the entire time. This film knows when to stop and have a serious moment in the story, which I appreciated.
There’s some things that seemed a bit forced in this movie, but the one negative thing that stands out to me is the amount of “bodily” humor in this film. I get it, it’s for an audience much younger than I am. But there’s a very substantial amount of the jokes in this film dedicated to farts, pee and butts. Enough so that you would think this was an early Dreamworks animated film, like Shrek.
This film has all the really great “quick” style of animation that you may remember From Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and I was surprised that they didn’t try to go for a much closer visual style to Genndy Tartakovsky’s own style, but I can imagine that could be pretty hard to translate to a CG model. Regardless Tartakovsky’s style does still shine through in his great shape choices and even on certain expressions you’ll see from time to time. I found myself going, “hey that was a Dexter face she just made!”
And the thing I was most impressed with in Hotel Transylvania was the story! Boil it down and this film is about an overprotective father who is just trying to look after his daughter but is very stuck in his ways. He doesn’t realize the world has changed. I was amazed that they found such a relatable story to hang all these fantasy monsters and old movie references on. And even though this may be a pretty simple or unoriginal thing the movie constantly put its characters in situations you’ve never seen before (racing tables and monster conventions,) this is where a lot of the originality of this film comes through.
Hotel Transylvania is a film I wish existed when I was a kid. I guess I should just enjoy the fact that so many animated horror films for kids are coming out these days, at least my kids will have plenty to watch! I think there’s enough here for anyone to enjoy though, even if you weren’t a monster kid growing up. 4/5 stars.
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