Friday, July 20, 2018

Hotel Transylvania (2012) Movie Review


Hotel Transylvania 3 is going to hit the Philippines sometime in August this year so I might as well do a quick review of the first two movies that came before it starting with the first Hotel Transylvania movie that came out back in 2012. I'm not a big fan of Adam Sandler since his style of comedy kind of gets old real fast. Maybe it's this reason why Hotel Transylvania went under the radar for me back then.  


Aside from Hotel Transylvania movies like the Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Amazing Spiderman also came out earlier that year so I imagined Hotel Transylvania went under the radar for a lot of people as well.



The plot of Hotel Transylvania is simple yet enjoyable. The idea of a hotel as a haven for monsters is as good as it gets thanks to excellent voice acting and really excellent animation. Adam Sandler brand of comedy might be lacking in his movies but his voice acting as Dracula is excellent. The has the right mixture of comedy and heart that I didn't expect this movie to have.


Cinematography wise movie is both new and nostalgia at the same time with certain scenes clearly taken and inspired from existing movies like that giant spider scene that is clearly taken from a Transformers movie. The movie does a great job of doing these while at the same time having its monster twist to it. I guess that's part of the charm of this movie.


This movie does a great job of playing of each monsters traits in their jokes like how dracula can stare at people and make them forget but he finds out it doesn't work on humans with contact lenses. The writers did a good job at playing along with these kind of humor in this film that I won't go into detail since that will spoil the film too much.


The voice acting in this movie is one of its high points each of the character has their own distinct charming tone. They capture each of the monsters personality in their voices. Everyone voice acting was perfect specially Adam Sandler as dracula's. The way he plays off each of the character and the banter between him and the rest of the characters is the best parts of the movie.


A lot of Hotel Transylvania comedy does hinders on mature jokes though so I'm not entirely sure this movie is really focused on little kids. Sure the kids might not get these jokes now but it's still there. This movie is rated PG for a reason and a lot of the comedy hinders from slapstick humor that can be over the top for little kids. The does movie takes advantage that most of the main characters are immortal monsters and probably can't die.


This movie was Genndy Tartakovsky which is a surprise. For those unfamiliar with Tartakovsky he is the one responsible for the creation of animated series Dexter's Laboratory, He also worked on the Powerpuff Girls, the Starwars Clone Wars and even created the storyboard for Iron Man 2. You can clearly see how much love he gave into directing this film.


There's was a small plot hole at the end though that could have been fixed with maybe at least five more minutes of movie run time. Namely how a whole bunch of villagers know that monsters exist by the end of the film yet they acted like nothing happened. 


Sure dracula might have hypnotically stare them all into forgetting or maybe struck some sort of deal with these humans to keep their monster existence a secret but would it kill this movie to give an extra five minutes to explain that.


Overall Hotel Transylvania was an enjoyable movie despite the premise looking somewhat cliche thanks to well executed dialogue and decent animation. It's a movie with the right mix of comedy and heartfelt moments that will be enjoyed by nearly everyone. A few minor plot issues but not enough to ruin said movie. If you're a fan of monsters and comedy than you will definitely enjoy this film a lot since a lot of the jokes hinders on the basic knowledge of these said monsters.





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