When I took in the first HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, I enjoyed the idea that kids might watch this film and get their first exposure to a lot of the monsters that I grew up watching, but in a safe, comical and not even a little bit scary setting—parent-friendly, if you will. Having been the biggest fan of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, the thought of having all of the big monsters in one place appealed to me—you've got Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler, who wrote the screenplay, once again, with Robert Smigel), Frankenstein (Kevin James), Wayne the werewolf (Steve Buscemi), Griffin the invisible man (David Spade), and Murray the mummy (Keegan-Michael Key), as well as a host of other creeps at one Transylvania hotel.
This time around, the filmmakers (including the great animation director Genndy Tartakovsky, who also helmed the first film, as well as SAMURAI JACK) seem to be struggling with an actual story, instead opting to send the core monsters on a little road trip, so the titular hotel is barely in the movie. You see, Drac's vampire daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her human husband Jonathan (Andy Samberg) now have a child named Dennis who doesn't seem to be a vampire (Drac swears he's just a late fanger).
Drac does everything in his power to inspire the kid to grow fangs—some of them rather disgusting—and while Dennis' parents are away visiting Jonathan's parents (Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman), Drac and his crew take the kid to a vampire training camp to push the kid once and for all into the realm of vampirism.
The jokes that worked best in the first film and still mostly funny. I'll always love Buscemi's world-weary werewolf Wayne, who has dozens of kids (thanks to his wife having large litters), and he can barely keep his head up enough to care. But all of the kid-friendly horror jokes wear you down after a while, even with a bit of subversiveness tossed in for the adults—child endangerment is a big hit around these parts.
I also liked the inclusion of Dracula's angry father Vlad (Mel Brooks), who is racist against humans and has not been told that his granddaughter married one, or that his grandson might be one. There are actually a few knowing jokes that draw comparisons to "mixed" marriages in the real world and ones that include humans and vampires (what is this, "True Blood"?), but the film is a bit too polished and safe to really dig deep into those parallels.
I'm guessing that the youngsters who enjoyed HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA will have the same amount of fun with the second installment, but I can't imagine anyone enjoying it more. But even with the sometimes striking visuals, it's tough to get past the pedestrian humor and paper-thin plot that ends up exactly how you know it will. When you get no surprises and very few laughs, you know you're doomed and in for a long matinee of spoon-fed family fun. Hope you like the taste of garbage.
