So, I just saw Hotel Transylvania 2...

Hello everybody!

Judging by the title of the film, you can probably tell that I saw Hotel Transylvania 2 at the cinema today. Seen as I liked the first one quite a bit, I decided it would be worthwhile checking the sequel out. And how does the sequel hold up?

Well… it’s kind of like RIO 2 in a certain respect – there are some things it does better, some things it does worse, which makes the sequel pretty much ON PAR with the original film. And seen as I like Rio and Hotel Transylvania – that’s fine with me.

As an obvious remark, there will be some spoilers in this mini review of the film – but I will try to keep them to a minimum.

First of all – one thing I won’t hold against the film is that, like the original film, it’s taking on a tried and tested plot. Seen as there are MILLIONS of films going around nowadays, it will be COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to make a COMPLETELY original film – there are BOUND to be plot elements, tropes and story points that have been used in many films before. It all depends on what the film DOES with these tried and tested plot points that will determine how good the film is. The plot of the film is an interesting one – following Johnny and Mavis’ wedding, they soon have a young baby boy named Dennis. As his fifth birthday approaches, Dennis has yet to grow his fangs, which worries Dracula that his grandson might not gain vampire powers. Noticing the dangers of Transylvania, Mavis starts to consider raising Dennis where Johnny grew up, much to Dracula's disapproval. So while Johnny takes Mavis to check out his home town, Dracula and his friends try to bring out the inner monster in Dennis.

Now, let me just get my first COMPLAINT towards the film out of the way – while the pacing in the first half of the film holds up well, during the second half of the film…. The pacing starts to get a bit lop-sided. The film starts out well enough with the wedding, Mavis announcing she’s pregnant to Dracula (but it is a bit odd how before the ‘hide and seek’ scene, I didn’t notice a baby bump at all…. Maybe vampire babies grow really fast? ), Dennis being born (by the way, THANK YOU, Hotel Transylvania 2 for not shoving in an uncomfortable labour scene. Labour scenes often tend to be written pretty badly in films and shows I’ve come across…. that for some reason I’ve been coming across a LOT in media with a pregnant mother character. So the fact that were wasn’t one was a relief to me ), and Dracula showing worries of his daughter leaving with his grandson and son-in-law, who he’s grown to really care for. But in the second half, I thought the reveal of Dracula’s father Vlad, the feelings of Johnny’s parents towards human-monster couples and the mean-spirited relatives of Dennis at the birthday party (those horrid children) was kind of rushed. When I heard the premise of this film, I thought that the reveal of Vlad coming to see his great-grandson would be more towards the START of the film, giving Dracula and his friends more of a drive to try and get Dennis to get his vampire fangs. Also, while the film DID show that the human world may react strangely to monsters, the scenes where Mavis was struggling to fit in felt a bit odd to me. I would have thought the film would have spent a bit more time with the parents talking to Johnny about what would happen if Mavis moved. Speaking of which, the film is quite fast to wrap up the end, isn’t it? Saying the whole ‘Oh, Dennis is a vampire now, he can stay’ felt a bit tacked on. Perhaps if Mavis and Johnny talked about the pros and cons of moving and coming back to visit Dracula, it wouldn’t have felt as rushed.

And perhaps the BIGGEST problem with the pacing becoming a bit off in the second half was with the main villain of the film – Vlad’s bat-like servant Bela. With Vlad himself, I can see why he would be bad with humans – and it was probably from him that Dracula got part of his original hatred for humans. And I did really like his design and the performance Mel Brooks gave him. With Quasimodo in the first film, I could at least SEE why he wanted to cook Johnny – like all the other monsters at the time, he didn’t trust humans at all – and I don’t blame him, considering the Hunchback of Notre Dame story. On top of that, Quasimodo was established earlier in the film, so it didn’t come out of nowhere when he was trying to cook Johnny. With Bela…. All the film gives is that he’s a servant of Vlad, and he’s more driven to hate humans than Vlad was – he isn’t really given much screentime to establish this. And while Vlad has a change of heart, it felt a bit odd to me that Bela wasn’t given much of a character arc – it felt very rushed to me. Even though Bela does have a very cool design, there’s not a whole lot to him – the villain is quite forgettable.

(Also, just on a side note – STOP talking about zinging! It sounds painful – I get that this is this franchise’s way of saying ‘falling in love at first sight’, but can’t you just call characters ‘crushes’ instead of their ‘zings’? )

But now onto the positives of the film – first of all – THE COMEDY. This film is pretty damn hilarious to me. While the second half of the film does drag a little, there are still a LOT of hilarious moments in it, and I found myself laughing quite a bit throughout. The puns, jokes and just the movements of the characters are pretty funny to me – the animation is just as energetic and humorous as the first film – the facial expressions on a LOT of the characters are just perfect.

Most of these are due to the expressions and reactions Dracula has – as bad as Eight Crazy Nights was, I like the fact that in these films, Adam Sandler has proven he can still be funny. His deliveries are bang on in this film, and nearly every single one of his funny lines made me laugh. As Dracula, Sandler is just the right amount of hammy without it being off-putting. Such a performance makes it seem as if the over the top way movie monsters acted in our films was just the "old way" of acting for them. I think my favourite moments were when he was dressing up as a nurse to get in to see his grandson, the scene where he looks completely unimpressed with the Vampire Camp they go to in one scene, and those scenes he had with trying to get to grips with technology. But he had a lot of funny lines here. Some other great lines are the scene where Dracula's new phone given by Jonathan has a GPS with a deep vampire voice, the Invisible Man teaching his workout class, and the sleeping lullaby that was sung by Dracula was "suffer, suffer, scream and shout”. Wow, I wish I got THAT lullaby sung to me when I was that age. Also – a side note on the cutaway gags – unlike Family Guy, these cutaway gags are only a few seconds long and are actually FUNNY, so it doesn’t feel superfluous at all. And need I mention the Phantom of the Opera jokes? THAT had my sides hurting.

Speaking of the technology – I have to give this film credit on the social media jokes. Getting monsters to get to grips with social media MUST be a challenge, and while some people may find the modern day references and product placement of Facebook and Sony a bit weird, but I liked the fact that Johnny was innovating the hotel by getting monsters connected through computers and phones since they were now allowing humans to stay at the hotel. I also like the scenes where Drac and his friends try to teach Dennis what it’s like to scare humans, but there are scenes like Frankenstein’s Monster trying to scare two women, and yet asking to have a selfie taken.  While I did wish there would be a bit more with the monster friends Drac has, their performances were still funny to me, especially Frankie trying on Drac’s costume, it ripping and leaving him shirtless followed by an awkward silence, and the scenes with Wayne chasing the frisbee and still looking pretty damn miserable when his hundreds of children assault him. (Seriously, is Wayne’s wife (sorry, forgot her name) like one of those ladies that never dry up and just keep having children? Child support must add up fast for this family, or perhaps Wayne himself a tad too frisky. ) I also found Blobby a nice little addition – he got me laughing in nearly scene he was in.

A lot of people give Dracula flak for being overprotective, but after having his wife killed by humans, I can see why he’s still overprotective of his family – and I would much rather have an OVERprotective parent than an abusive one in my films – at least it shows they care! Speaking of which, while I thought Johnny was just a bit of a dork in the first film, I found him pretty funny here too – and I had a bit of a fangasm when I saw him wearing a Gary Oldman Dracula costume – they mocked Twilight in the first film, and now they poke fun at that weird design Dracula had in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Mavis… is still a hottie. And I feel like this is an upgrade for Mavis – I will admit, I found her a bit annoying in the first film, but here, I find it interesting how she’s as concerned for Dennis’ safety as Dracula was for her safety – it’s quite an interesting change. Seen as Dennis is more human than vampire, Mavis is afraid that all the monsters around will be harmful to him, so I felt that, like Dracula, it’s justified that she’s overprotective of him.

And now onto Dennis himself – to be fair, he’s only about five years old in this, and he does act quite a bit like a regular little boy. I also have to give the film credit that it’s making a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY, something that usually annoys me to no end in real life (yeah, in real life, I’m not very fond of young children ), rather cute. I also found his friendship with Winnie, the werewolf girl, just adorable. The fact that their friendship is written like little children is also quite nice – and I liked that one scene where Winnie showed off her fangs to Dennis. This also brings forth what I liked about the way Dennis gets his fangs - Bela hurting Winnie was what made Dennis's fangs come out. In the end, scaring the fangs out of Dennis didn't work. Instead, Dennis's want to protect Winnie brought out his fangs. I found the scene, and these two, quite cute. I also liked the moral – nothing mind-blowing, but short and sweet - the message of this film is that no matter how different someone else is, they could be the best thing that ever happens to you, so love them no matter how different they are.

So on top of it being hilarious for everybody, there's a lot more to it as well. Obviously if you're a fan of the first Hotel Transylvania, it's a guarantee you'll enjoy this sequel. The style of animation is exaggerated, highly sporadic, like a human gas molecule with ADHD and an IV inserted coffee bag. There is a lot going on in almost every scene, and with the characters behaving so hyper, it may take a couple viewings to take in all in. The humor is quick, very in your face, but welcoming. And trust me, humor is a-plenty. Whether it’s an out roar of laughter, or a slight chuckle, I promise you there are a lot of gags and jokes in this.

While tailored to two separate audiences, obviously there will be moments where one side will feel out of place. Either a child will cock their head to the side in puzzlement at the pop culture references made for adults and maybe laugh but only because the adults are, or an adult will think to themselves "well that was just weird." And yes, it's intended for younger audiences, so much of everything is easy to swallow.

So, those are my two pennies on the film. It’s nothing SPECTACULAR, but it has a ton of gags, likeable characters, a story that is mostly easy to follow, and it did make me feel happy after watching it – which is much more than I can say for…. *ahem* ….. ANOTHER Adam Sandler film I’ve watched….

What are your thoughts on the film? Feel free to leave a comment below. I’m sorry that my review of Razorback is taking a while to write, but I promise I’ll try to get back on track.

See you soon!