Review of Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018) by Ben B — 15 Sep 2018

The previous two Hotel Transylvania movies are definitely some of Sony Animation's strongest movie, they are both family movies that have some very funny moments along with great animation. In the third one, it still delivers humour like the first two but lacks a solid storyline. In this film we see Dracula trying to find a date as he is jealous of not having a girlfriend and a wife and when Mavis finds out he is stressed out about running the hotel she takes, literally, all the monsters onto a cruise ship where Dracula falls in love with the Captain. It yet again stars Adam Sandler as Dracula, Selena Gomez as Mavis, Adam Sanberg as Jonathan and Mel Brooks as Vlad and all the original cast come back to reprise there roles. This movie isn't the best animated movie this year but it's a solid Sony animated movie. When the movie was progressing I was able to pin point what the conclusion of this movie would be, it is a predictable movie but there is a lot of fun to be had here, the soundtrack is great, I didn't have any thing wrong with the score and the final fight scene was a much stronger finale than the other two but didn't necessarily end the way I hoped. But despite the charm and warmth of the film there are a lot of flaws to examine. Let's start of with the story, it was so straight forward, it didn't take us anyway unexpected, apart from the finale that was actually one of the funniest moments I've seen in a film in a long time that chose the right songs, but the film, as a whole, felt like a re-telling of the first but instead of Mavis and Jonny falling in love we have Drac and Erica falling in love, also it was like the first one in a multiple of other ways, notably the romance, like I just said it feels like a re-telling of the first because of it but in the first one Jonny isn't allowed to be with Mavis because he is a human but in this one Erica cannot be with Drac as her family hates monsters, it's like the first but vise versa. Talking about copying things and clichés, there is one scene that includes Erica and Dracula that looks like a image of Gru and Dru from Despicable Me 3 due to the colour scheme. But it was great that it was different from the other two and that the focus was more on the characters than the Hotel and the film felt like it had little plot and it focused on introducing the new characters and there development rather than having a good story that in some instances was a bad choice. Another flaw is too do with Vlad and Dennis. Don't get me wrong these are great characters with great arcs and development however all the development that we saw in the second movie felt wasted because these characters had barely any screen time. However, they're not the only problems with the movie, the biggest flaw, for me personally, is that most of the time the animation looked like a Looney Tunes or a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The characters faces and body language looked cartoonish and it looked a lot different from the previous films that annoyed me. Also, Wayne the Wolf was tranquilized in the middle of the film and was kept in a basement of some sort and he didn't return until the final two minutes of the film, so it felt like they done this to this particular character because he had no use in the story but they had to include him some way because he is part of the trilogy.

But apart from the flaws, Hotel Transylvania 3 is a fun, re-watchable fun fest filled with gags and laughs that will keep kids and families alike entertained even if it is the worst in the trilogy and no where near as groundbreakingly great as the new Incredibles movie. This film is a lot of fun that I think will improve when I watch it again but it's a film that isn't without its flaws but we should be grateful that it is not The Emoji Movie 2 or The Fidget Spinner Movie.