Review of Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) by Joseph D — 13 Jul 2018

Adam Sandler as Dracula....who knew it'd be popular enough to spawn ONE movie, let alone three?!

Hotel Transylvania 3.

I didn't see the first two in the theater, but I did see them eventually. And honestly, they were both worth at least 3 stars outta 5. As for the 3rd installment, it's consistent with the series so far.

At about one & a half hours, it moves at a pretty steady pace. The story is twofold, Dracula is seeing more of his friends in relationships, all the while still hurting from the loss of his own wife, so his daughter treats everyone to a ocean cruse. Which brings us to the story's other half; the cruse liner's captain, for whom Drac falls, turns out to be a Van Helsing, plotting to uphold the family legacy by not only offing Drac, but all the monsters. PS, this is in the trailer, I'm not spoiling anything.

The characters were all true to form for this franchise, Sandler is still decent as Drac, the villain was ok, not threatening, but entertaining, the rest of the cast & their little side-plots were fun in their own ways, with two parts where I laughed out loud.

The animation was a mixed bag of pretty good. The only off thing about Drac though was that the animators gave him a bit too much movement, he looked like a talking mime. The sets & backdrops were gorgeous, some of them looked almost like practical models! All the characters were "cartoony", but in a good way. The 3rd act was the most impressive, but I don't wanna spoil it.

The music was ok, nothing stood out too much....until the 3rd act. Again, no spoilers, but my fellow '90s kids are gonna both love it, & feel OLD when they see/hear it!

I would say Hotel Transylvania 3 is most definitely consistent with the rest. It's not as good as Coraline or Paranorman, but it's not bad, it might be best for fairly young kids, even though the more "adult-ish" jokes might go over their heads. Keeping with the franchise, I'm giving it 3 stars outta 5, not quite the Friday the 13th film I was expecting, but still in keeping with the holiday.