Review of Hotel Transylvania (2012) by Harry W — 01 Dec 2015

With an ensemble cast of popular comedians lined up as the voice cast, Hotel Transylvania sounded like a promising comedy in the form of an animation.

Adam Sandler's prior efforts in animated cinema have been less than stellar if you consider the awkwardly unfunny status of Eight Crazy Nights, but Hotel Transylvania is actually a significant improvement and one of his better films of recent years. Unfortunately, it is still not the greatest film.

Hotel Transylvania is essentially an animated version of Grown Ups, attempting to appeal to the adult market through the presence of notorious comedians of the past two decades along with the horror mythology references while the juvenile humour and animation is directed at the younger market. This sounds like a clever way to market to a wider audience, but it fails to take advantage of its potential. I can't say that I expected too much from the story since I figured it would be a predictable one.

Hotel Transylvania does have some funny moments to it, but it fails to put an appropriate balance on much of the comic potential in the characters and instead confines itself to a familiar and predictable love story which was one thing I never liked as a child. As an adult, I still fail to find that it does anything favourable for Hotel Transylvania. The internal logic of the story isn't exactly sensible. I mean, the story jokingly skips past the fact that Mavis is aged 118 yet given the appearance of an 18 year old. This is a very minor plot point which is easy to ignore since it is meant to exists solely to serve as a front for a series of animated horror-themed gags, it's just slack writing. I was completely ok with that idea, but it seems that Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel had different plans. Despite the film boasting a talented cast of voice actors and a wacky novelty premise, Hotel Transylvania becomes obsessed on taking its repetitive story very seriously. Neglecting the potential to take advantage of the talented cast of voice actors, Hotel Transylvania instead relies on being a familiar love story with a slight horror twist to it. As a kid I probably would have been somewhat frustrated by this due to the fact that I couldn't stand love stories, and though I was more forgiving of it now and could appreciate the fact that it was less melodramatic than many others, I still feel like it got in the way of the comic potential of the film without promoting many great gags of its own. Eventually, viewers have to settle for the simplistic nature of the screenplay for using repetitive jokes and story elements while only momentarily stepping away from them for sporadic moments of juvenile fun.

Even though the film took itself a bit too seriously, I still did enjoy the experience. There wasn't enough humour for me to call it a good film, but there were enough gags for me to say that it certainly was not a boring one. Hotel Transylvania is a film which is really easy to watch due to its animated charm and its kid-friendly nature. The film is one clearly marketed predominantly at younger audiences, and though it may not be as sufficient for adult audiences who are looking for greater innovation in the humour, its easy-going nature makes for an experience that is easy to lay back and enjoy on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The animation in the film is impressive. Though it is used more simply as a front for a ridiculous story than to show off groundbreaking visual techniques, the designs of the characters are original and their movements are detailed. But above all, everything is remarkably colourful. Even though the film maintains a sense of shadow to reflect the horror themes, it is far from being too dark to genuinely the light nature of it all. Visually, Hotel Transylvania has a lot to offer.

And though the voice cast are underutilized, there is enough charisma in them to bring some needed laughter into the feature.

At first I thought it might be difficult for me to separate Adam Sandler's natural tone of voice from his role as Dracula, but as the story went on it became easy to embrace. His light tone of voice is not dark enough to suit the role of Dracula in any conventional sense and it instead reminds viewers all too obviously that it is him in the role. Since this is one thing viewers will just have to accept, they have to make the best of it. After getting over the fact that it didn't cater to my vision of Dracula, I learned to find solace in the fact that it was simply an Adam Sandler character and found that in actuality, his dedication to voice acting in the role delivered one of his finest performances in recent years. In films such as The Cobbler (2014) and Pixels (2015), Adam Sandler's lack of different voice tones is his most depressing downfall. In Hotel Transylvania, his voice is the only gimmick he has to offer and therefore has to actually do something with it. His energy in developing effective articulation does eventually become something he appears to have fun with. Adam Sandler proves to be a fairly effective lead for Hotel Transylvania, so he makes it his own well enough,.

Selena Gomez was better than I was expected. Her poor performance in Getaway (2013) made me extremely critical of her as an actress, yet her experience as a singer has clearly given her experience in voice articulation. She had the appropriate sense of juvenile energy for the role of Mavis and shares effective voice chemistry with both Andy Samberg and Adam Sandler while also ensuring that she doesn't spend her entire time in the film whining. Though she is the female character in a dull romantic plot, her voice work is genuinely charming and matches the character enough to elevate the feature.

Andy Samberg procures mixed results. As his character Jonathan Locker is the fish out of water in the story, his over the top energy in approaching all the character's ridiculous situations has some appeal to it. But since the story has him going through the same basic plot dynamics again and again, the material gets repetitive very fast and therefore so does his voice. Andy Samberg has his moments, but his gimmicks are so overused that they wear thin quickly and he soon becomes just a very loud and annoying presence. Andy Samberg is sporadically successful in Hotel Transylvania, but it is too sporadic to justify precisely how prominent his role in the film is.

Kevin James has no problem delivering. Though Franksenstein may not precisely get enough screen time, the man's tall stature makes him a perfect fit for Kevin James' combination of awkwardness and aggressive shouting. He puts a lot of energy into his part with every single line and easily captures a fun chemistry with the voice cast around him, effectively ensuring that his characters is one of the funnier additions to the story. Kevin James' presence may not give him enough screen time to live up to the quality of his efforts, but he surely knows how to keep things going whenever he is around.

Though David Spade certainly has a naturally funny voice about him and the invisible status of his character is certainly played for some occasionally decent gags. But in all essence, the best humour in an animated film comes from what can actually be seen more so than the invisible and so his potential is limited. Still, his energy is fun enough. Steve Buscemi and Jon Lovitz also have their moments.

So Hotel Transylvania is too focused on its predictable and dull love story plot to capitalize on the potential of the voice cast or its zany premise, but its sporadic comedic success and nice animation makes for easy viewing.