Hotel Transylvania

Wow, it's been too long since I've updated this blog.  Um, sorry?  At any rate, I recently saw the Sony Pictures Animation film Hotel Transylvania, and I thought it would be worth recording my thoughts on it.  Spoilers will be minimal (though I'll be honest upfront - there's little in the plot that you couldn't guess from the trailers). 

Now that I stop to think about it, this may actually be the first film from Sony Pictures Animation that I have ever seen.  The Ice Age films have been on my mental "should really get around to watching" list for quite a while now, but none of their other material has even drawn my attention.  Well, that's not quite true.  I've seen The Pirates!: Band of Misfits (a.k.a. The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists) and loved it, but I consider that to be Aardman as opposed to Sony, much as I consider Pixar films to be, well, Pixar films as opposed to Disney films. 

I digress.  The trailers for this movie caught my eye earlier in the year.  I like to think I know a good concept when I see one, and the idea of Dracula establishing a hotel for monsters to get away from humans seemed like an entertaining one to me.  The idea of monsters being afraid of humans is nothing new, having been done to great effect in Monsters, Inc.  This, however, appeared to have more of a classical monster feel, bringing in any monster who was in the public domain.  So, you have Dracula, Frankenstein's monster (yes, sadly referred to as just "Frankenstein" in the movie - there is really no excuse for this), the Invisible Man, mummies, werewolves, etc. all interacting with each other and with the inevitable human intruder into their world.  Does it work?  Let's find out. 

Visuals: On first glance, the film is nothing special in the visuals department.  The CGI and animation are fairly basic, but perfectly effective.  Character models are the same basic standard that we've seen in every CGI animated film for about the last decade.  There are some nice scenery shots, but nothing likely to impress anyone who's seen Brave or Legend of the Guardians.  And just to answer the inevitable question, no, the 3D is not worth it in this instance, though it's perfectly harmless. 

The visual charm of this movie is a more subtle one, purely coming from the execution.  The characters move magnificently, with their own interesting styles.  The vampires are swift but graceful, the mummy is slow and awkward, and so on.  More importantly, the filmmakers have a fantastic sense of visual comedy.  There are so many sight gags that it would take forever to mention them all, but I will say that the writers take full advantage of the comedic potential of these monsters.  The Invisible Man is a particular treat, showing that less is often more.  The film keeps these jokes coming at a good rapid pace, meaning that I was generally interested on humour alone.  They're not the most sophisticated jokes in the world, but they're good for what they are. 

Music: Honestly, the musical score for this movie was completely forgettable.  This isn't to say it's bad, as I don't recall any instances of annoying portions, or music that didn't go with the events on screen.  I just doubt that anyone will be in a rush to buy the soundtrack.  In addition to the background music, there are a few songs, which are reasonably well-integrated in the form of a concert.  The ones in the middle of the film are actually pretty good, although I'm hardly a music guru.  The one at the end, however, is very annoying, and if you're anything like me, you'll probably be wanting it to end, yet it keeps on going.  Not a good way to end the film. 

Plot: As already mentioned, Dracula has built a hotel for monsters where they can relax out of sight from humans.  Specifically, he has built it so he can keep his daughter Mavis safe.  It has been said that there are only two plots in fiction: "a boy leaves his home" and "a stranger comes to town".  I disagree with this statement, thinking instead that you can apply those two categories to lots of different plots.  In this case, we have the story of the overprotective parent who must learn to let go of their child so that the latter can live their own life.  Finding Nemo did this with the boy leaves his home plot form; Hotel Transylvania does it with the stranger comes to town form. 

In this case, the stranger is Jonathan, a young human who manages to dodge spooky security and arrive at the hotel on the eve of Mavis' 118th birthday.  Mavis, being essentially the standard young adult who wants to explore the world, is fascinated by the idea of humans, but has never met one herself.  Dracula is naturally horrified at Jonathan's intrusion and seeks to keep the human from interacting with his daughter.  Wacky hijinks ensue, with several facades being built up and then torn down.  Jonathan and Mavis form the standard romantic connection, yada yada yada.  You could probably write a basic plot outline from this point, and believe me, this does use a fair few of movie cliches, including a few from romantic comedies. 

That said, the story is fairly well told.  There aren't any plot holes that came to mind, which is always a plus.  Some critics have said that the story drags in the second act, but I honestly was distracted from any such issues by the aforementioned visual comedy.  For me, the film fell apart in the third act, where the writers seem to have lost the ability to show, and instead have characters spurt out monologue after monologue.  Consider yourself warned. 

Characters: As mentioned, the titular hotel is host to a variety of strange and wacky monsters.  I'm not going to talk about any of them here, because they're all basically walking gags.  This is not a problem, as it's all they're supposed to be.  Instead, I'll briefly discuss the film's three main characters: Dracula, Mavis and Jonathan. 

Dracula is at once both what you would expect and not what you would expect.  He has the appearance, powers and a fair few of the mannerisms of a classical vampire, but at the same time is a polite and friendly host to his fellow monsters.  It's that gentlemanly aspect that I honestly found the most interesting about him, moreso than his fatherly side. 

Mavis is the worst of the three.  She's not a bad character as such, and does get her fair share of entertaining moments, but she's just too straight an example of the rebellious teenager archetype for me.  Honestly, there's little to say about her because there's little to her. 

Jonathan was the character who surprised me the most.  Generally, I hate the token human in any work of speculative fiction, and at first, Jonathan came off that way too me.  As the movie progressed, however, I found it hard not to like his relaxed, take-every-day-as-it-comes personality.  He can be freaked out, of course, but he's often funnier when he's acting completely relaxed at a hotel full of monsters. 

Voice acting: This film has a lot of celebrity voice actors, it seems.  I've talked about that issue enough for now, so I'll just say that they're harmless here, but better performances would likely have been possible with a more seasoned voice cast.  Just to alleviate some fears, although Dracula is voiced by Adam Sandler, the professional manchild does a surprisingly decent job with the character.  As with all of the voice acting here, it's nothing special, but it gets the job done. 

Emotion: The emotion here was always going to come from three main relationships: Dracula/Mavis, Mavis/Jonathan and Dracula/Jonathan.  Honestly, the first two are nothing special.  We've all seen overprotective parents before, and we've all seen generic romance before.  This film adds nothing to either of those, though it does them well enough. 

The relationship that I actually found the most interesting was the one between Dracula and Jonathan.  Obviously, the two start off on bad terms and wind up better by the end, but it's really interesting to see how much it's Jonathan who changes Dracula more than anything else.  Indeed, it seems to me that the movie is really about their developing friendship as much as anything else.  I won't spoil any more details here, because I found it to be very well done, and easily the most well-developed emotional part of the film. 

Conclusion: I've been using phrases like "it gets the job done" a lot here, and that seems to sum up Hotel Transylvania quite well.  The film is nothing special.  The elements of story have been done before, and this adds little new.  Its keen sense of visual humour, however, keeps it consistently entertaining for all but the most cynical viewer.  It won't win Oscars, but you could do a lot worse than giving this film a try. 

Final rating: 3/5.