‘Hotel Transylvania’ provides fun for kids and adults

Hotel Transylvania is a fun movie that children will love and parents will enjoy sitting through.

Directed by animation genius Genndy Tartakovsky, Hotel Transylvania shows an admirable dedication and respect for its central premise while avoiding the numerous pitfalls that make many kids movies unwatchable.

The movie is set at – where else – Hotel Transylvania, a hotel and resort for monsters. It was built by Dracula (Adam Sandler) after the tragic death of his wife, in order to keep their daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez), safe.

The hotel also provides a refuge where the world’s monsters, such as the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Invisible Man (David Spade) and The Mummy (Cee Lo Green) can enjoy themselves far away from the prying eyes and dangers of humanity. Mavis, however, is unconvinced by her father’s dire warnings about humans, and wants to go off and see the world.

Things get complicated when, on Mavis’ 118th birthday, a human named Jonathan (Andy Samberg) wanders into the hotel. Dracula conceals Jonathan’s identity as a human and unsuccessfully tries to get him to leave, but Mavis and Jonathan become smitten with each other, starting a series of events that swiftly spiral out of Dracula’s control.

Hotel Transylvania is notable less for what it is and more for what it is not.

For instance, the movie features a truly star-studded voice cast, including the likes of Fran Drescher, Jon Lovitz and Molly Shannon. Yet, Hotel Transylvania chooses to use the talents of its actors in a restrained and skillful way, having them voice characters rather than animated versions of themselves. Case and point, Kevin James plays a blue-collar version of Frankenstein, rather than a Kevin James version of Frankenstein.

It’s a subtle difference, but an important one, and it’s an element that many animated movies fail to grasp the importance of, choosing instead to draw attention to their voice cast for cheap look-at-me points rather than using them to simply tell a good story.

Indeed, Hotel Transylvania is pretty adept at avoiding cringe-worthy moments, keeping poorly-done pop culture references and gratuitous pandering to a minimum, efforts which are a welcome sight in a kids movie.

As might be expected from the title, the chief touchstones of Hotel Transylvania are classic horror films. The film treats them in a fond and loving manner and strikes a good balance between call outs to old-school monsters, well-known and obscure, and never allowing this affection to hijack the central story or the comedic action.

Most of the credit for how good a film Hotel Transylvania is almost certainly rests at the feet of its director, Tartakovsky.

Anyone who watched cartoons in the 1990s or had a child or grandchild who did should be familiar with Tartakovsky’s work as the creator of the shows Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls and the brilliant Samurai Jack. Hotel Transylvania is Tartakovsky’s feature film directorial debut, and it’s abundantly clear that his skills haven’t suffered from the transition between formats.

Make no mistake, Hotel Transylvania won’t be winning any awards. Indeed, its not in the same league as most Pixar films and light years away from Laika’s ParaNorman, which might possibly be the best movie of the year.

That being said, if you have kids, or are just looking for something enjoyable to pass the time, Hotel Transylvania is a fine choice for the weekend. You certainly won’t leave the theater disappointed.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on October 11, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Columns,Movie Reviews,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry