philosoraptor42

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

The reviews for this haven't been great. They haven't been exactly awful, but certainly lacklustre. This deeply surprised me because the director is none other than Genndy Tartatovsky and I kind of love this guy. He's the creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack, he was closely tied to The Powerpuff Girls and was animation director for the (actually pretty damn awesome) Powerpuff Girls movie.

(Click on the image for full size. Rotating from top left: Aku the demon from "Samurai Jack, Yoda wielding a lightsabre, Dexter and Deedee from "Dexter's Laboratory". In centre, Genndy Tartatovsky dressed as Samurai Jack.)

What's more Genndy Tartatovsky was responsible for the Clone Wars cartoons which spanned the gap between George Lucas' second and third awful Star Wars prequels (not the 3D animated Clone Wars cartoon, that came later). Tartatovsky's Star Wars cartoons had the same characters as the movies and featured the distinctive and creative animation style of the Samurai Jack cartoons, but what was incredible was that the Star Wars prequel universe suddenly felt exciting in those cartoons.

The Clone Wars cartoons showed a genuine villain who seemed to pose a real threat to the Jedi (though he gets his chest crused by force powers, so that's why General Grievous seems a little pathetic in Episode III), they showed clone army commandos who actually seemed to have an advantage over the droids (as opposed to in the movies where we're simply told that clones are better and then see no real evidence of it). They showed Yoda going out on missions, C3PO being genuinely funny, Anakin and Padme suddenly demonstrating a bit of genuine romantic chemistry, and the plot was well paced and had a clear logical progression. It was just simply superior to the live action movies in every way.

Genndy Tartatovsky was supposed to be working on a sequel to the classic Jim Henson puppet animation movie "The Dark Crystal" (titled "The Power Of the Dark Crystal"), which would presumably be his first major project to use puppets. Instead "Hotel Transylvania" is his first 3D animation movie (which isn't to say that the other movies didn't use computer effects, but not with 3D graphics).

The story of "Hotel Transylvania" is that Dracula's young girl Mavis is now reaching the age of 118 and she wants to see the world. However, Dracula is terrified that she'll come to harm from humans and he's been exaggerating the threat they pose all her life. Meanwhile Dracula runs a hotel, taking pride in its complete isolation from the human world. The hotel provides a getaway for monsters wishing to escape meet up away from the prying and threatening eyes (and pitchforks) of human beings. Monsters regularly flock to the hotel for Mavis' birthday celebrations since Dracula always makes a big effort over them. When a human tourist manages to turn up at the hotel it risks not only destroying the hotel's reputation, but also revealing to Mavis that humans aren't as threatening as she was led to believe....

Dracula's daughter Mavis turns into the cutest vampire bat EVER!

So what was wrong with "Hotel Transylvania"? Naturally there was the possibility that I'd find nothing wrong with it at all, but with so many lacklustre reviews there must be something about the movie which at least lessened its appeal for some viewers, right?

The criticisms of "Hotel Transylvania" I've heard elsewhere don't really work for me. Adam Sandler plays Count Dracula and I heard one reviewer claim that he sucks the comedy out of the movie. This is nonsense. The Dracula voice that Adam Sandler puts on makes him completely unrecognisable, the lines he's expected to deliver are pretty much flawless and to be quite frank, he does a good job with the role. (His face would be completely wrong for it, but the voice he puts on? Perfect!)

I was actually rather less impressed by Andy Samberg, who plays the human tourist whose appearance at Hotel Transylvania threatens to stir things up. Over the course of the movie he was fine, but Adam Sandler is actually REALLY entertaining as Count Dracula.

If we are looking to figures who keep appearing in Adam Sandler's awful live action movies, Kevin James ("The Zoo Keeper") would seem to be a major culprit. Still, while he didn't exactly blow me away, his role as Frankenstein's Monster was small enough that I didn't need him to make a big impact.

Another issue I'd heard was that the movie contains toilet humour. There is admittedly one fart joke. It was a bad idea and it wasn't funny, but it isn't anything like so horrendous as the fart competition some might remember from the movie "Robots" (if you missed that, you can see how awful that scene was here). I'd say that "Hotel Transylvania" gets away with its one toilet humour joke.

The other suggestion might be that "Hotel Transylvania" doesn't have that emotional weight that we see in the best animated movies these days. I think that's unfair too. The father who is frightened of the outside world, afraid of change and fears for his daughter entering that world, is a fantastic premise which is really well explored. When Mavis starts becoming really intrigued by the new visitor it becomes impossible for Dracula to get rid of him, but on the other hand if his true identity is discovered Dracula's reputation with both his daughter and his guests will be in tatters.

The inevitable reveal when Dracula and other monsters finally have to step outside and see the world of the humans is handled very well. There were any number of ways that could have been handled and I did not expect the route they actually took with it.

Zombie valets. Only the best for Hotel Transylvania.
(Slight downside: Highly flammable!)

But there are a few problems with this movie. The animation isn't as spectacular as I'd expect from Genndy Tartatovsky. He's been fantastically creative in 2D animation but in 3D animation he isn't able to play the same sorts of tricks. That's not to say that the animation is below average, but rather that Tartatovsky doesn't seem to provide animation that is distinctive and original here.

I actually think the 2D in the final credits more closely represents the sort of thing I was looking forward to from Tartatovsky here. It's simple but effective and highly creative. It's just a credits sequence, so don't expect it to blow you away, but it's much closer to what I'd normally expect from a Tartatovsky project:

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A pretty big problem I have is the last minute shoehorning of this concept of 'the zing'. If there'd been some foreshadowing for this I might have been less annoyed, but right at the end people suddenly start talking about how relationships with a 'zing' last forever. It's just such a ridiculous term to hear anyone using, never mind Count Dracula. What makes it especially problematic is that a finale song (with autotune *ugh!*) is all about this 'zing' nonsense. You can hear the song here (warning, since this song occurs at the end of the movie it is kind of a big spoiler):

But in spite of how awful the 'zing' song might be, there's an awful lot to like here. The film is very funny, it has that close emotional connection that we've come to expect from animated movies and it's just generally a lot of fun. Personally, I preferred this to "Rango" but I still thought that was worth watching. It's pretty awesome that our standards for 3D animated movies are so high right now.

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B+

Some classic 2D Tartatovsky work:

Powerpuff Girls Movie, the girls play 'tag' for the first time.

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Clone Wars, Clone commandos being badass:

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Clone Wars, Mace Windu uses force powers to fight massive droid army:

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Clone Wars, General Grievous takes on 6 Jedi at once:

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