Pauls Valley, Oklahoma — Quite often there is not a lot of difficulty in finding a good film to watch with each year providing more than enough that at least reach the decent mark, but often many worthy of good might only be missing that one scene or touch short of great. Today’s entry is pulled out of the new release DVD bin and actually was one personally anticipated this past film because of an endless desire to worship most things goofy.
Delivering in just about every expectation of silly laughs and fresh twists on classic characters, this time of the horror variety, I really have no complaints. However, upon watching some of the included extras I can’t help but wonder if this well-deserved hit of 2012 might be in the best of animation discussion instead if one of their deleted scenes had actually been included. ‘Hotel Transylvania’ could very well have served an “Up” style delivery to audiences, starting off with a decent tearjerker to compliment an already fun ride worth a repeat viewing.
Set in the cozy old place mentioned in the flick’s title, we are introduced to that infamous bloodsucking king, Dracula (Adam Sandler), who has had years of success operating a safe hideaway for monsters. Things seem to be kicking off for another successful vacation season and the celebration of his daughter Mavis’ (Selena Gomez) 118th birthday, when an unexpected guest in the form of a human named Jonathan (Andy Samberg), arrives and unknowingly threatens to destroy all peaceful efforts.
Ever the clever bat, Dracula schemes to disguise Johnny Boy as a relative of Frankenstein (Kevin James) until he can get him off the hotel grounds, something that only seems to backfire the longer the lie goes on. Be it his daughter who develops a crush on the boy or fandom through those like Wayne Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) and detection by Chef Quasimodo Wilson (Jon Lovitz), it’s only a matter of time before the chaos cannot be contained. It all builds up to a nice little examination on how the outside world might not be so bad and the healing of wounds long left open.
While there are moments where adults can have as much a blast as kids watching this, it is definitely leaning toward being favored by those young enough to enjoy a healthy dose of be nice morals. One of the things I enjoyed most was seeing the style of one of my favorite animators, Genndy Tartakovsky, who brought forth such genius works as “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Samarai Jack.”
You can definitely see his influence there with the quirky character design and interactions straight out of Saturday mornings. It’s even worth checking out the extra short included on the DVD, “Goodnight Mr. Foot,” where you can see how the universe could be expanded pretty well on media in the future. As a result, I’d say “Hotel Transylvania” earns three and a half out of five screams.
DVD rental courtesy of Family Video of Pauls Valley.
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