‘Hotel Transylvania 3’ is bland, boring version of ‘Love Boat’ with monsters
Genndy Tartakovsky has his fans and they praise him as the Pixar crowd touts Brad Bird, but Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation fails to offer much more than mindless animated babysitting for moviegoers’ children.
Adam Sandler is back to voice Dracula with the cast of monsters moving from his hotel to a vacation cruise after his daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez), leads the adventure to “get away.” The famous monster hunter, Van Helsing, voiced by Jim Gaffigan, and his great-great-granddaughter Ericka (Kathryn Hahn) join Sandler’s fraternity of actors as Drac experiences a “zing” – the monster equivalent of “love at first sight.”
Despite grand dance crowds or poolside activities to showcase the various creatures with detailed animation, Drac’s search for love is the closest thing to a plot for HT3. Not much happens for the classic movie monsters: Frankenstein (Kevin James) is a horrible gambling who last lost his arm and a leg – literally; Dracula’s pop Vlad (Mel Brooks) is all the rage among the witches; Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) is dragging around his countless pack of unruly pups while Murray the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key) and Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) are more irrelevant than ever.
Sony managed to ruin nearly every single gag in the film’s trailers and promotional material, so expect a chuckle or two, because the film never really becomes funny.
Mavis and her human husband Johnny (Andy Samberg) never contribute much to the story as Drac courts Ericka: Mavis struggles with accepting the woman and Johnny is more juvenile than the earlier films. In fact, Johnny never has anything to do except run around and act like a buffoon. Vlad may have two lines, but never seems to notice anything going on with his son or the looming danger at the end of the film.
The message of tolerance is repeated and rammed down the throats of the audience as Tartakovsky tells us over and over and over again how there’s no difference between humans, monsters and even unicorns. Got that kids, love whoever you want, no matter what…it’s all going turn out ok.
Sander’s joke are dull at best and only Wayne and his wife get to enjoy the film’s best joke…with a non-existent payoff late in the movie. The first two films in the franchise offered enough entertaining quirkiness to be appealing but Summer Vacation is combination of forgettable and painful.
Tartakovsky’s best work has been on TV, Dexter’s Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls, but now has become a Michael Bay of the animated world, obsessed with the visuals and forgetting to offer something interesting in the story.
The biggest failure of the film is the trap to treat kids like they are dumb, offer only mind numbing virtue signaling for a plot with lame SNL jokes. Parents will turn out because…well, there’s not much else to do.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation gets 1 1/2 stars out of 5 stars