Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)
IMDB Rating : 6.4/10 ( as on 21.07.2018)
PG | 1h 37min | Animation, Comedy, Family |
While on a vacation with his family, Count Dracula makes a
romantic connection.
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Writers: Michael McCullers, Genndy Tartakovsky
Stars: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez
IMDB link Here
Recently the actor Sandra Bullock said
in an interview that “children should review children’s films,” which made me
think, “Sure, why not. Save me some work.”
With this aim in mind, I persuaded some
friends to loan me their delightful 8-year-old daughter, Willow, for a press
screening of “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.” Willow is familiar with
the premise of the franchise; utterly unbothered by the potentially
adult-disturbing logic of building a children’s entertainment franchise around
an undead vampire hero (the most famous one, Dracula, voiced once more by Adam
Sandler) and his monster friends; and most tickled by the recurring character
Blobby, the Jell-O-like creature who can vomit miniature versions of itself.
This installment opens with a
19th-century flashback showing Dracula besting the vampire hunter Van Helsing:
think a caped and fang-bearing Bugs Bunny versus Elmer Fudd. In present day,
Dracula’s daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez), arranges a cruise vacation for dad,
and on board he falls for the ship’s captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn), the
granddaughter of Van Helsing and a foe who could turn friend. Both Willow and I
saw this plot development several miles before its reveal.
The scenes of Dracula befuddled by a
mobile phone were familiar; those in which the vampire’s garlic “intolerance”
preludes a flatulence joke predictable. Returning a third time as director,
Genndy Tartakovsky lends his usual graphic savvy, providing a not-quite-saving
grace.
One of the problems with the child film
reviewer model, it turns out, is the changeability of children’s opinions.
During the end credits, Willow said she “loved” the movie. On the ride home,
she said she “liked” most of it, but some parts were “a little scary.” Upon
overhearing me tell her parents that the picture wasn’t my cup of tea, she
loudly proclaimed it “the best movie ever made.”
Read complete review at New York Times
Movie Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
The Adam Sandler
franchise seems to have finally run out of all jokes
Shalini Langer
The law of diminishing returns had
already set in by the time Hotel Transylvania swung around the second time in
2015. Three years later, the story of Dracula and his daughter running a hotel
for monsters in Transylvania seems to have finally run out of all jokes. And,
frankly, ideas, with the film returning to its first idea, of a monster and
human falling in love, this time in the form of Dracula (Sandler) and Ericka.
Hahn, a vivacious actor, has none of her vitality in the role of Ericka, while
the affair between her and Dracula is devoid of that forbidden angle that made
the first Hotel Transylvania click.
The two partners of the older love
story, Mavis (Gomez) and Johnny, also seem to share less and less chemistry — a
consequence inevitable in all affairs that end in marriage, and hence best
avoided on screen. Anyway, they also have less and less to do in this film
dominated by Sandler for the most part, including when Ericka enters the
picture. They encounter each other when Dracula’s daughter Mavis plans a family
vacation on a cruise, but then takes the entire monster brood along. Ericka is
the captain of the ship, but also the grand-daughter of Van Helsing (Gaffigan),
who has been chasing Dracula for ages and is now reduced in his old age to a
contraption, with its only human parts the face and neck. Ericka sets out
hating Dracula, but then they ‘zing’ (a concept of love taken straight out of
the Twilight films).
The cruise, meant to end at the
Atlantis, sets off from the Bermuda Triangle and halts in the middle at an
undersea volcano and a deserted island. If you are imagining lots of adventure,
hold your thought. Most of the action happens on the ship, where Dracula walks
around in beach shirts and mini-mini-shorts, and his dad in briefs and a
distended belly. When the film enters the water, it is a mish-mash of blinding
colours. There is some chatter of inclusivity etc, of treating different people
the same, but you are clearly meant to keep your eyes focused on Dracula at all
times.
All said and done, as Dracula himself
puts it, a cruise is nothing but a hotel on water. And it’s about time this
film checked out of one.
Read complete review at Indian Express
Movie Rating: ★★✬☆☆
Monsters take a trip but formula stays the same
Jake
Wilson
Hollywood
may be obsessed with battles between good and evil, but the computer-animated
Hotel Transylvania films, like those in the rival Despicable Me series,
continue to insist that sometimes supposed bad guys are just misunderstood.
Take
Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler), not the bloodsucker of legend, but a
lovably bumbling patriarch whose biggest flaw is an occasional failure to move
with the times.
This
anti-bigotry message surely carries a personal meaning for director Genndy
Tartakovsky, whose
family left Europe to escape anti-Semitism. Scattered through the series are
hints that being a vampire can be taken as a metaphor for being Jewish, a subtext
which is probably lost on most children, but which might lead adults to wonder
how far anti-Semitic ideas have influenced vampire mythology all along.
The
plot is interspersed with a lot of gags about what the Mummy (Keegan
Michael-Key), the Invisible Man (David Spade) and Drac's other pals might get
up to on vacation. Much of the innocently silly humour stems from the character
designs, such as the giant puppy which Drac's grandson Dennis (Asher Blinkoff)
smuggles on board in a trench coat.
There
are occasional sinister images, such as the giant, dark ship itself, but the
overriding suggestion is that even the weirdest-looking monsters are just plain
folks.
The
most daring subplot involves a werewolf couple (Steve Buscemi and Molly
Shannon) who start to get frisky after they find a babysitter for their
demanding brood of pups.
While
the suggestive content here is very mild, the theme is still an oddly adult one
for a family film, especially in parallel with Mavis' unease at her father
allowing a new romance into his life. But this, too, seems destined to go over
the heads of kids.
Read complete review at Sydney Morning Herald
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