David Pierdomenico
The original Hotel Transylvania in 2012 began with an interesting concept: Dracula opening a hotel to grant monsters refuge from a world of humans that feared and despised them. Much like Richard Matheson’s original “I Am Legend” novel in 1957, it portrayed a world where monsters are just as afraid of humans and see them as the villains. However, this unique and thought-provoking premise was squandered with the casting of Adam Sandler as Dracula, and the rest of his entourage of usual players: Kevin James (Frankenstein’s Monster), Steve Buscemi (Wolfman), and David Spade (Invisible Man).
Dracula’s Search for Love
The film opens with a flashback to the monsters dealing with Abraham Van Helsing back in 1897. It sets the stage that his family has been after them for generations and will continue to do so. Next we are taken to the present and a wedding between two tertiary characters who may or may not have been in the previous films; they’re that forgettable. Dracula realizes while he does have Mavis and Dennis, he still yearns for love after losing his wife over a century ago. In one of the few actually funny scenes, he signs up for online dating, via a Tinder like app called Zingr, where he video chats with a witch who comes with an army of cats. It’s just funny to see such a real life struggle portrayed with monsters to exaggerate it.
From there, Mavis surprises him and his friends with a monster cruise to Atlantis. Dracula sets his eyes on the human captain, Ericka (voiced by Kathryn Hahn). She seems to be interested in him as well, but is actually trying to kill him since she is really Ericka Van Helsing, the great-granddaughter of Dracula’s sworn enemy. Giving Dracula a love interest is a welcome new direction for the series, but its execution is the same clichéd manner we’ve always seen. Where one of the characters has an ulterior motive from the beginning, develops real feelings, which all leads to a contrived dramatic moment where their true intentions are revealed but they claim they don’t actually feel that way anymore.
Losing What Little Charm Remained
Despite Sandler’s annoying voice, which is quite reminiscent of his work from Eight Crazy Nights, the first two films did have an admitted allure to them. The visuals were interesting and fun, and some of the jokes were clever. Hotel Transylvania 2 even introduces the concept of monsters and humans coexisting, in an almost racial allegory. The first two had all the same juvenile toilet humor that Adam Sandler is famous for, but it also had some of these interesting ideas. Summer Vacation, on the other hand, abandons these themes almost entirely. It’s a shame because the second film seemed to really be going into a new and fascinating direction. But this is all set aside for a film that just opts to send everyone on vacation.
Much like Adam Sandler’s other films, Just Go With It, Grown Ups, Grown Ups 2, and Blended the story is just about the characters getting into hijinks that aren’t really that funny. The odd thing, those other films are live action, so Sandler actually got to go to these exotic locations. What then was the point in doing the same thing via animation? Unless Sony has such little faith in its audiences that they believe this will be passable for entertainment.
Underusing What Talent They Had
Part of what made Hotel Transylvania somewhat funny was the character foils of Dracula, Johnny, and Johnny’s parents. Their awkward interactions felt relatable and therefore there was some humor in it. In addition, adding Mel Brooks to the cast as Grandpa Vlad was a welcome contribution. His normal blend of sarcasm and witty humor really shined, despite getting limited screen time. In this film, however Johnny barely has any scenes with Dracula, his parents are completely absent, and Grandpa Vlad is around for most of the movie but has no more than five lines.
Feels More Like a Music Video Than a Film
Unlike the previous two installments, hardly any time is spent at the titular hotel. And in at least several key scenes, the film almost stops completely and a music video ensues. Well, technically not a music video, but an upbeat pop song plays while a montage of different funny (but not really) scenes play out. Even the climax of the film involves something of a battle between songs. It’s extremely disheartening to see this, because while the first two had their dumb humor, they never felt like cheap products or cash grabs.
They never felt intentionally mindless like this one did. The first two films can make one cringe every time there’s another bodily function joke, but at least they felt like they were trying to say something. They spoke to the acceptance of different groups of people and provided an interesting parallel to our own world as humans and monsters integrated. This film is honestly difficult to watch, precisely because it’s so lazily written and unfunny. Somehow, Adam Sandler took the one franchise he had that was decent, and made it complete garbage, just like every other film he’s done in the last decade.
