Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

October 22, 2015 5:48 PM

Dracula and his friends try to bring out the monster in his half human, half vampire grandson in order to keep Mavis from leaving the hotel.

"It’s not exactly inventive, but it’s filled to bursting with sight gags and puns. And perhaps most important, director Genndy Tartakovsky keeps things moving at an even faster clip than the first film, restoring the verve that once made Sandler’s buffoonery interesting. Hotel Transylvania 2 is minor, to be sure, but given the comedian’s recent work, it still counts as a pleasant surprise." – Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (3 comments total)

I did not see the first movie, but ended up seeing this due to being hanging out with nieces/nephews. In general: not terrible, not amazing. Most of the plot beats were telegraphed way in advance, and for a kid's movie I suppose that's fine. Some of the jokes landed pretty well, some felt forced. The animation and directing was nice, though it'd be nice to see Genndy Tartakovsky get a chance to work with a better script.

I will say, the ending felt like a weirdly mixed message. The whole movie is premised on the notion that Dracula can't accept his grandson if he isn't a vampire. The big moment is when Dracula realizes that he loves his grandson no matter what -- except this is totally reversed moments later, when it turns out that his grandson really is a vampire. This is a kid's movie, and I get that, but it felt almost like having a movie end with "... and we, your parents, will totally accept you if you're gay! But you're not! But we would totally accept you if you were! But you're not (thankfully! (did we say that out loud?!))"
posted by tocts at 5:19 AM on October 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is a kid's movie, and I get that, but it felt almost like having a movie end with "... and we, your parents, will totally accept you if you're gay! But you're not! But we would totally accept you if you were! But you're not (thankfully! (did we say that out loud?!))"

Law & Order or CSI or one of those damn shows had a stretch a while back where virtually every story ended with some demented O Henry "And it turns out the gay-bashing victim wasn't even gay!" or "And it turns out that the old lady hadn't really written her killer out of her will!" It was like the writers had a certain number of WOMP-WOMPs they had to get out of their systems.

I saw this on/about opening weekend because elder boy got to see The Martian and we figured it would only be fair for younger boy to get to go to a movie too. I'd never seen the first one either (this is the second sequel I've ever seen "cold" like that, the first being Santa Clause II: Still Clausin' or whatever the fuck it was called), but I never felt like I'd missed anything. So, yeah, decent kids movie, enough mild scares to keep them interested, enough adultish jokes to keep me from falling asleep more than once.
posted by Etrigan at 10:14 AM on October 23, 2015

This was a straight B movie for me. Entertaining enough to not feel like I wasted an hour and a half. I think Sandler does better with goofy kids movies with adult jokes than he does with adult movies with dumb kid jokes.
posted by numaner at 7:23 AM on February 22, 2016