Review: 'Hotel Transylvania: Summer Vacation', Not a "Zing" To Be Found On This Cruise

With Adam Sandler taking his "talents" to Netflix, the other reliable place to find his juvenile brand of humor is Hotel Transylvania, but at least it knows its audience. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation finds a lonely Drac taken on a vacation cruise to the Bermuda Triangle by his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and a Monster Squad of his freakish buddies. While there were a few chuckles in Drac's failed attempts to scare off his daughter's eventual husband Johnny (Andy Samberg), there's simply no  "zing" when the attention turns to his love life.

What this vampire needs is an Anne Rice-style makeover. Even the Twilight vamps are getting more action than the king bloodsucker himself, who continues to run his fancy hotel for monsters. He's worried about growing old without someone to love, an odd concern for someone who shouldn't age. But monsters only get that "zing" once in a lifetime, and he had it with his deceased wife. I guess her death is the only death that sticks because all sorts of dead and undead creatures are running around. Sensing her father's loneliness, Mavis takes it upon herself to book them all on a Monster Cruise, which is when Drac instantly "zings" with the creepily enthusiastic Captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). Unfortunately, she happens to be the latest in the long line of monster-hunting Van Helsings, and her true goal is to kill him and all of his pals.

What's up with the Dracula fam all falling in love with humans? Seems illogical and counter-productive; nobody wants to be in a relationship that sucks the life out of you.

The laughs are feeble, but the animation by Genndy Tartakovsky is beautiful, angular magic. His monsters bounce, the fur whips in the wind, and fangs glisten in the moonlight. Character designs spring with personality, from the lounge-singing Kraken to the giant salivating pup stowed away on board by Vlad's grandson.  He builds humor out of the animation, but the overlong comic/musical sequences feel strangely out of place in a movie aimed at a child's short attention span.

The stunning visuals are a decent distraction from the utter lack of memorable jokes. Okay, there's a fart joke that's pretty funny but you'll be ashamed for laughing at it. Vlad's best gag is a misunderstanding with his phone's vocal assistant. He's lonely, but she offers him baloney. Blah. Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Mel Brooks, Keegan-Michael Key and more all return as Vlad's monster buddies who are looking to stoke the fires of romance. Best of all, and the closest thing to funny this movie gets, are Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon as werewolf parents who ditch their cubs at the daycare and run free like young wolves in heat.

The kiddies may get a kick out of the eye-popping animation, but will they really care if Drac finds himself a new woman? Adults...well, they get to do the "Macarena" like it's 1995 all over again. Consider a staycation rather than booking passage on this Summer Vacation.

Rating: 2 out of 5

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'Hotel Transylvania 3' Trailer: Drac's Summer Vacation Is A Summer Trap

Even Dracula needs a vacation, and in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Drac (Adam Sandler) makes his a summer cruise. At night, of course.  The third chapter in the box office heavyweight franchise finds Drac lonely and swiping through monster Tinder, until his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) convinces him to take a vacation from planning everyone else's vacation.

Aboard a monsters-only luxury liner, Drac falls in love with a descendant of Van Helsing who has a secret plot to destroy them all. Should make for awkward dinner conversation.  Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Mel Brooks, and Molly Shannon all return, with Kathryn Hahn joining as Drac's monster-hating love interest. Here's the synopsis:

In Sony Pictures Animation's Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, join our favorite monster family as they embark on a vacation on a luxury monster cruise ship so Drac can take a summer vacation from providing everyone else's vacation at the hotel.   It's smooth sailing for Drac's Pack as the monsters indulge in all of the shipboard fun the cruise has to offer, from monster volleyball to exotic excursions,  and catching up on their moon tans. But the dream vacation turns into a nightmare when Mavis realizes Drac has fallen for the mysterious captain of the ship, Ericka, who hides a dangerous secret that could destroy all of monsterkind.

The first two movies have earned over $900M combined, however they typically arrive closer to Halloween. We'll have to see if the summer release date on July 13th was a good idea or not.

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Review: 'Hotel Transylvania 2' with Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez & Andy Samberg

I really sit here wondering if anyone was caught by surprise with the fact that Hotel Transylvania got a sequel? I was shocked for sure. Was the first really that good and made that much money? Well at this point it doesn’t matter. Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel wrote another movie and they sadly got Genndy Tartakovsky to do this after killing that Popeye the Sailor movie. All these things gave Sony a nice Halloween pumpkin spice cartoon for the season to sell some products it seems. Being I’m a bit of an animation enthusiast of the Punch Drunk Critics I said I’ll take this. I watch cartoons on Saturday morning but sadly I could’ve watched repeats of Gumball on Cartoon Network and had a better morning.

So Hotel Transylvania 2 goes through the motions of time very quickly. Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and Mavis (Selena Gomez) get married and have a son in a montage lasting a few minutes. So you get to the point of Dracula (Adam Sandler) being just as much of an overprotective Granddad to Dennis (Mavis’ son) as he was a father to Mavis. The main crux of the film is Dracula excited for the possibility of Dennis being a vampire while Mavis is becoming a helicopter mom and thinking of moving away from the Hotel to California. At this point there are many things that Dracula is trying to do to get Dennis to transform into a vampire while skirting around Mavis. The parts here are where the movie becomes mostly a cartoon version of a Sandler movie in writing and gags. We get essentially two movies with poor Jonathan having no growth as a character at all from the last movie. His character could’ve died and you would’ve had the same movie basically. The movie at a point feels like three half hour cartoon episodes strung together. The last act has a villain and a grandfather (Mel Brooks) that really pops out of nowhere. It doesn’t make much sense along with the action set piece at the end. While it’s nice to see this part as the only sequence where you can experience Tartakovsky’s animation style and cartooning genius it doesn’t make any sense that it’s in there. It does make you want a Dial M for Monkey movie though.

One thing that really takes you out of the movie is the force-feeding of Sony product placement in the movie. I joked that we were going to see a PlayStation 4 in the movie 15 minutes in since at that point we had already seen multiple Sony android phones and televisions. While there are laughs throughout the movie there is overall less heart in this sequel than the last movie. That’s saying a lot since the last one wasn’t anything to cry at home about, either. Most of the look of the movie is on par with the last one with some small apparent improvements to the design and effects.  The hair on Dennis is really something. It’s to the point I think hair in CG animated films will reach the uncanny valley way before anything else.  A lot of the lighting set designs are nice. The lighting really works well with palette along with the way 3D works in terms of darkening everything. Maybe it was thought out but it might also be a nice happy accident.

Overall Hotel Transylvania 2 is not that great and not terrible either. It’s a project that you wish the Tartakovsky had invested a bit more of himself in. While his name is on it I don’t lay the blame with him.  It's sadly something that I don’t think will really hold the attention of many kids over time and surely not something you would want to have to sit through again and again. In the end what you end up with is Monster Grown Ups and I think we all deserve a bit better than that.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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The Drac Pack is Back in New Trailer for 'Hotel Transylvania 2'

For a long time one thing we could say about Adam Sandler was that at least he didn't do sequels. Well, that's no longer the case. Not only did he inflict Grown Ups 2 on us awhile back, but this summer brings a sequel to Hotel Transylvania, but at least this is one film audiences may be happy to see return.

Sandler is back voicing Dracula in the animated monster comedy, with Kevin James, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, and Mel Brooks filling out the rest of the "Drac Pack". Here's the official synopsis:

The Drac pack is back for an all-new monster comedy adventure in Sony Pictures Animation's Hotel Transylvania 2! Everything seems to be changing for the better at Hotel Transylvania... Dracula’s rigid monster-only hotel policy has finally relaxed, opening up its doors to human guests. But behind closed coffins, Drac is worried that his adorable half-human, half-vampire grandson, Dennis, isn’t showing signs of being a vampire. So while Mavis is busy visiting her human in-laws with Johnny – and in for a major cultural shock of her own – “Vampa” Drac enlists his friends Frank, Murray, Wayne and Griffin to put Dennis through a “monster-in-training” boot camp. But little do they know that Drac’s grumpy and very old, old, old school dad Vlad is about to pay a family visit to the hotel. And when Vlad finds out that his great-grandson is not a pure blood – and humans are now welcome at Hotel Transylvania – things are going to get batty!

So more supernatural parenting problems!

Once again directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, Hotel Transylvania 2 opens September 25th.

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Genndy Tartakovsky Exits 'Popeye'; Joe Carnahan Drives 'Motorcade', and More

In surprising news, the forever-developing CG-animated Popeye film has just lost its director. Animation guru Genndy Tartakovsky (Hotel Transylvania) had been devloping the Popeye film for awhile and even dropped some well-received test footage last year, but now he tells Moviefone he's no longer involved and moving on to his first original project, Can You Imagine?, which takes audiences on a fantastic journey through the imagination of a young boy.  There's a chance the Popeye film moves on from Sony Pictures Animation and to another studio. Or it may just be dead and in desperate need of spinach.

In more positive news, Joe Carnahan (The Grey) is set to revive the long-in-the-works action flick, Motorcade. The film, which was penned by Billy Ray, has the President's motorcade attacked by terrorists in Los Angeles. Tom Cruise and Ryan Reynolds have been attached for the lead role at various stages, but right now there's no cast. [Variety]

Yet another Stephen King story is headed to the big screen, and Mama director Andy Muschietti will direct it. He'll take the helm for an adaptation of King's 1981 short, The Jaunt, which "takes place in the 24th century, as a father explains the ground rules for 'Jaunting,' a form of teleportation the family will be using shortly to go to Mars. The key is that travelers must be under anesthesia for the short journey, or terrible things happen to the mind of those being jaunted around the solar system. Time stands still and one’s brain implodes with too much time to think in an absence of external stimulation. Bad things happen." [Deadline]

It's been eight years since Gael Garcia Bernal's directorial debut, Deficit, and now he's finally ready for his sophomore effort. Screen Daily says he'll next direct Chicuarotes, which Bernal calls a dark comedy that will "follow a group of kids — around 14, 15 years old — who live by the lake. They’re economically poor but not miserable or unhappy, basically living in paradise," Filming is expected to begin in early 2016.

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Sony Scraps 'The Smurfs 3' in Favor of Animated Prequel

Sony Animation has a lot of projects in the works, and it's fair to say they are really looking to gain some ground on Dreamworks and Pixar. They've now given an update on their animated slate and it includes one original project, plus follow-ups to The Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania.

First up, Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2) has been hired to direct an all new, totally computer animated The Smurfs movie, but it won't be The Smurfs 3. This one will be a prequel exploring the origins of the Smurfs, sticking closer to the original Peyo designs. After the last film's box office failed to come close to the $600M-grossing original, the decision was made to go in a different direction. The aim is for the untitled film to be ready by August 2015. 

Sony is really hitching their saddle to the back of Hotel Transylvania director, Genndy Tartakovsky. Not only is he coming back to helm a sequel to the Adam Sandler-voiced hit, but he's also working on an animated Popeye film. These are projects we've known about for awhile as Hotel Transylvania 2 is already set for release in September 2015. Tartakovsky also has a new film on the way titled Can You Imagine?, described as “a fantastic journey through one boy’s imagination.” Some early artwork from it can be seen above.

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'Hotel Transylvania' sequel set for 2015

Sony Pictures thinks they may have found their first big animated franchise in Hotel Transylvania, and judging by the response to the first one they may be right. Opening late in September, monster comedy has done monster bucks at the box office, with over $250M at this point and still chugging along. So it's no surprise that the studio has already set the gears in motion for a sequel, slotting it for release on September 25th 2015.

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