The biggest sin of Hotel Transylvania is not that it is stupid. It is not that it is unfunny. Rather-the biggest sin of Hotel Transylvania is that it is boring. Filmmakers, in my eyes are allowed to make a kids film as stupid or as ludicrous as they want. That is, as long as they do not make it boring. Kids will not be able to sit through an entire film if there are no bright colors yet there is a boring story at play. Yet...this is not all bad. If you are going to be dragged to the movies by your kids this weekend and have already seen Finding Nemo...then parents might actually be amused if not just a couple of times. Yes...there are many allusions to those old monster films and some of them actually stick quite well.
The film stars Adam Sandler as Dracula who has decided to make a hotel for all monsters to live peacefully. His daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez) just wants to live her life so when a clueless human named Jonathan (Andy Samberg) accidentally drops in...she sees this as her chance to not only live her life but perhaps fall in love.
The main problem with the film is that it is not ambitious enough. It keeps going for the easy laughs. For example-there is a fart joke in the film that was dead before it even began. There are also many "oh no...a human" jokes that are way past their prime. As I previously mentioned....the film does have a couple of nice references to the old Bela Lugosi-Christopher Lee films of the 50's but about 90% of the humor is close but no cigar stuff.
Overall....Hotel Transylvania is just okay. There is nothing dreadful about it but there is nothing good about it, either. As far as Sandler family films go...it is not nearly as bad as Jack And Jill and is harmless enough but it never gets its own two feet off the ground and will likely bore your kids.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG for some rude humor, action and scary images)
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