I personally am a HUGE fan of the first Hotel Transylvania film, so I was super excited for the second to come out! I critique movies from time to time and felt I should give a little review for this one on the Autumn Blog. :)
For me, the first one is the better of the two and I have to say I blame it on Adam Sandler. Sandler was a co-writer on the second film, and boy could I feel it. While the first one was subtle, simple, smart, witty and perfect...the sequel felt a bit more in your face with a LOT slapstick humor, dialogue that felt like it was a bit more dumbed down, and bits that didn't need to be there. This movie seemed to want to throw in a whole lot of content in the short amount of time they had...
The movie starts out with Mavis and Johnny's wedding and we get to see Johnny's human family coming together with the monsters of Transylvania. There were bits that I loved like how all of the wedding photos were missing Mavis as she is a vampire and can not be filmed and Mavis' wedding dress being black and beautiful with a spider web veil. The screen shows "One Year Later" and now Mavis and Johnny are visiting Drac to announce the news that she's pregnant, and little Dennis is born. Johnny's parents show up at every event and I appreciate them for that as they are trying to adapt to the monstrous characters as best they can.
Mavis and Johnny's son Dennis is adorable and we get to interact with him through the rest of the film.
The movie has many funny jokes, witty Halloween ideas, and I'll still purchase the film when it comes out for home viewing to add to my collection. Overall I did enjoy it, but I couldn't help but leave the theater with a bit of disappointment.
The big issues I can remember are these:
We get the "one year later" subtitle when the pregnancy is announced, but that is all and I had a problem comprehending what age Dennis was at times as his character always looked the same, but he grew 5 years in the movie with only one scene to show the audience that time has passed and that stopped at age 3 but then all of a sudden it was time for his 5th birthday and I had to regroup my brain.
There is a time when the film tries to humorously use The Phantom of the Opera, and this was one of those times where there was too much for what was needed. The character failed, felt awkward and was just thrown in. You could barely hear what he was singing as he was pushed to the background and they should have saved him for Hotel 3 and given him a better story. I love the Phantom of the Opera and this movie made me want him to go away.
And biggest problem with the movie was the end. Throughout the movie the character of Dracula's father is brought up, but he doesn't show up til the last quarter of the film. His part would have been fine had we gotten more time with him. He is old school, and hates humans, and changes his mind to love them within mere minutes. He brings along his henchmen of large bats who also hate humans, and we waste the rest of the movie fighting them off. The main henchmen felt like a useless, last minute afterthought that our characters had to battle when we could have had a better wrap up, and a better time spent on getting to know Drac's father.
I still recommend going to see the movie with your family, as it's a great Halloween film for the year.
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