Grade: B
“Hotel Transylvania” is about Dracula (Adam Sandler) planning and hosting his daughter Mavis’s (Selena Gomez) 118th birthday party at his hotel for monsters.
The Hotel Transylvania is a home-away-from-home for monsters or rather a sanctuary from humans. Dracula has convinced all of the monsters that humans are pure evil.
Mavis was promised by her father that she would be able to venture out into the human world on her 118th birthday. Reluctantly, Dracula lets her go to the next town over which he created himself with the help of his zombie butlers. When Mavis is attacked with fire, garlic bread and pitchforks, she returns home promising to never go out into the human world again.
The story starts to develop when Johnny (Andy Samberg), an adventurous 21 year old college student, finds himself in the hotel during the birthday party. Unable to get rid of him, Dracula disguises Johnny as a monster and pretends that he is helping plan the birthday party. The plot thickens when the film explains why Dracula is over protective of his daughter and how he must fix the mistakes he’s made.
With an all-star cast of monsters such as Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Cee Lo Green, Fran Drescher and Kevin James, it’s hard to think this movie was made for kids. With jokes about Slipknot and Dave Mathews Band, it seems like this movie was made for college students. Dracula even played a ukulele, much like Adam Sandler did in “50 First Dates”.
The character development of the film was exceptional. Each character’s personality seemed so similar to their actor/actress including the creature’s appearance. The animation, 3D look and cast selection is very similar to other Sony Pictures Animation pictures such as “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and “Surf’s Up”.
When it comes to animated movie, keeping all ages entertained can be difficult. “Hotel Transylvania” did a great job at keeping the audience’s attention from children to their parents. The cast’s voices are easily recognizable and give adults in the theater the upper hand on connecting the actors comedic style of acting to the jokes animated on screen.
Overall, “Hotel Transylvania” deserves a B rating. It’s definitely worth seeing!
