Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.“Hotel Transylvania” is a comedy without the humor and a monster flick without the fun.
While the film will bring some chuckles, and there are two or three memorable tidbits thrown in, it is overall an uninspired experience. With the bar of excellence elevated so high due to Pixar, a movie like “Hotel Transylvania” comes off as just embarrassing. The premise allowed the filmmakers so much room for creativity and fun: a hotel full of monsters. How the end product resulted into a mundane story about a father unable to let go of his daughter is just inexcusable.
One of the biggest flaws of the film was casting Adam Sandler as Dracula. His voice acting was underwhelming and just plain bad. Dracula’s storyline takes up 90 percent of the film and that presents a problem. The character itself if unbelievable: Dracula simply sounds like Sandler attempting a mediocre vampire impersonation.
However, Selena Gomez as Dracula’s daughter, Mavis, and Andy Samberg as her human love-interest, Jonathan, did a fantastic job at voice acting. The entire cast did admirable at their voice acting apart from Sandler, which makes Sandler’s inferior performance really stand out.
All of the wonderful aspects of the story — the giant mystical hotel, all the fascinating monsters, the gothic setting — are all just the backdrop to a far less interesting plot that audiences have seen a thousand times. All of the monsters could have been cut out of the film and the story wouldn’t have been harmed at all. The story focuses on how Dracula isn’t able to let go of his teenage daughter.
Mavis wants to go out into the world, but Dracula is reluctant because monsters are afraid of humans. But then, a human being, Jonathan, finds the hotel and wants to stay, ruining Dracula’s plans of keeping Mavis away from the outside world. This sounds interesting, but the film drained all the fun out of what could’ve possibly been worth watching.
There is nothing to hate about this movie, but there isn’t much to like about it, either. The movie is placid and lifeless.
As “Hotel Transylvania” progresses, the audience is left wishing they never spent their money and instead left the theater. Even children won’t appreciate this nonsensical film.
Children deserve better than this. Children deserve the type of entertainment that “Toy Story” or “Finding Nemo” delivers. Not only are those films more entertaining and hilarious, Pixar’s films have substance. The first 10 minutes of “Up” had more interesting content than the entirety of “Hotel Transylvania.”
Instead of purchasing a ticket for “Hotel Transylvania,” go buy a sandwich or two because a sandwich has more layers and flavor than this film.
Rating: PG
Pitchforks: 2/5
Reach the reporter at: tverti@asu.edu
