Hello everyone and welcome to the latest entry in my series of reviews dedicated to the Hotel Transylvania franchise! This time around I’ll be taking a look at the second installment, Hotel Transylvania 2, which came out in 2015, 3 years after the first. After the success of the original, a sequel was inevitable and it ended being more successful grossing more than the original. This is an interesting one to look at as I have seen many people that actually consider this an improvement over the original and their favorite of the entire series. While I can see why people would like this one as there is a lot to like, I personally have always found myself underwhelmed by it. Lets see why that is as we jump back into this world of monsters once again!
Set after the events of the original, Johnny and Mavis are now happily married with Mavis expecting a child much to the enthusiasm of her father, Drac. She ends up giving birth to a baby boy whom they name Dennis (or Denisovich as Drac likes to call him) and Drac is excited to have another potential vampire in the family. However, as Dennis is about to turn five years old, Drac begins to worry that his grandson may not gain any vampire abilities. Not only that but Mavis begins to question whether the hotel is a safe environment to raise her child and starts to consider moving to Johnny’s howntown in California. In order to set things right, Drac tells Johnny to take Mavis to visit California, while he and the rest of the Drac Pack babysit Dennis when in actuality Drac intends to train Dennis to help him find his inner monster.
This has always been a frustrating film for me as there is a lot that I like, even love about it… but there’s also quite a bit that doesn’t work. For me, among the biggest highlights is actually the comedy as at it’s best I found this to be a really effective comedic romp with clever and often times hilarious jokes. Similar to the original, much of the humor stems from the wacky situations these monsters would get into, this time with the Drac Pack trying to navigate a world that very different from the one they knew back then. the entire monster training plot line provided some great laughs with the stand out sequence being when Drac takes Dennis and the gang back to his old summer camp which provided one hilarious moment after another and it culminates in a really great confrontation between Drac and Mavis involving a viral internet video (always get big laughs from that part). There are also plenty of fun gags that I found inventive with a favorite of mine involving this Barney parody that Dennis watches known as Cakey (much to Drac’s dismay). Not only that but I do like the messages the film is trying to tackle in regards to accepting the differences in people and even some jabs at cultural appropriation, which is apparent when Johnny and Mavis go to visit Johnny’s family. With that said I have some serious issues with how the movie goes about some of these messages and in it’s structure. The plot here is fairly thin with the writers opting to use it as a way to showcase some gags. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as many of the jokes do land and I honestly enjoyed the road trip comedy vibe that the film had going for a while. However things get a bit messy in the third act as the it feels as if the writers felt the need to add a bunch of other things to the mix like Drac’s father, the birthday party and even a random villainous force to be dealt with that felt slapped in at the last minute. Then there’s the matter of the ending (spoilers ahead). Look I know that I really shouldn’t be surprised that the film went in that direction for Dennis’s character arc as him becoming a vampire is in theory a crowd pleasing idea and was probably expected by many. The issue, though is that I felt it went against what the movie was trying to say in regards to accepting and being proud who you are even if you don’t have those special abilities. It also rewarded a certain character’s behavior when frankly that behavior did not justify any reward what so ever (more on that later). So I felt the messaging on the whole felt rather muddled which is a shame as I think the comedy was on point and some of the best the series has to offer.
That being said one thing I will admit that is a step up from the original film is the animation, which was already a highlight in the installment. Tartakovsky and the animators really stepped up their game, turning the energy levels up even higher and it made for some visually inventive results. For one the movements are extremely fast paced, which often times adds to the bits of physical comedy with the exaggeration of the characters being funny on their own terms, with even the facial expressions being amusing. There are a number of really fun action scenes that do take advantage of this with whenever the characters are running around at high speeds or fighting back against the bad guys in the case of the climax. The backgrounds are nicely rendered and the hotel is once again a fun location to be around, even if its not as prevalent this time around, with a galore of monsters inhabiting it. Once again a lot of creativity went into designing these different monsters with some new ones being thrown in there (don’t know why, but the one off gag involving the blue tooth gets me every time) along with many of returning faces that nonetheless have a slightly more cartoonish look to them. This also applies to the humans as they too have gotten a bit of a change in terms of design, with there being more exaggerations and I think the upgrade works. One other noticeable aspect is that the colors a bit more pronounced here and it did help make the visuals even more appealing. Plus, Mark Mothersbaugh’s score is once again a lot of fun here, adding to scenes with him knowing what kind of music to play to set up the mood, although I do feel like the movie might have overdone it with the amount of needle drops concerning songs that were popular at the time.
One other aspect I liked about the first film were the characters as I found them to be fun to be around and thought the voice actors did a solid job voicing them. Here most everybody is back (save for CeeLo Green who voiced Murray in the first, who is now voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) and while I do think there is some surface level fun that they provide, I can’t say I loved the direction taken with all of them. Starting with Drac, while Adam Sandler once again does a great job voicing him, delivering a lot of the lines very well and getting some good laughs out of me at the same time, I can’t say I loved how his character was handled. I just didn’t find him to be that likable of a character here at all as all he is so obsessed with wanting Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) to become a vampire, that it gets kind of grating after a while and it didn’t feel like he learned any kind of lesson by the end as he pretty much got what he wanted, even though it didn’t feel like he deserved it given his behavior throughout the film. That being said I do like how Mavis (once again voiced by Selena Gomez) has matured, becoming a more responsible individual only wanting what’s best for Dennis while still maintaining the wide eye curiosity for new things she had in the first. Plus Dennis himself is a cute character that at time had some nice moments of bonding with some of the characters, especially with Winnie (Sadie Sandler). Unfortunately I can’t say the same for Johnny (again played by Andy Sandberg) as he is largely sidelined here as he’s mostly there to take Mavis away from the hotel and he is frankly even more of an airhead here than he was in the original and it is at this point in the franchise where he starts to become more grating as opposed to amusing. Meanwhile, the rest Drac Pack are still a fun gang of characters with the camaraderie still providing a lot of the biggest laughs and it was fun seeing them try to recapture who they once were to train Dennis. As for some of the new characters, I thought Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman were amusing as Johnny’s parents who are more than a little unsure of how to treat this new relationship of their sons’, while Mel Brooks is a delightful (if a tad underutilized) new addition as Drac’s father, Vlad, giving a lot of energy to the role and providing some solid laughs. However I don’t understand the purpose of he’s servant, Bela (Rob Riggle), who all of a sudden becomes the main villain of the third act when the movie didn’t really need one. I guess that must’ve been to add something more to the plot, but it felt so abrupt and shoe horned in that the movie would’ve likely been better off without it.
In the end, Hotel Transylvania 2 is a very mixed bag of a sequel that is frustrating in the sense that there’s a lot to like, but the stuff that doesn’t work really stands out. I laughed very hard throughout, there are some good messages, the animation is a lot of fun, and there is some decent character stuff throughout. However the story is pretty thin and messy, the main message wasn’t executed in a satisfying manner, and I was not a fan of how certain characters were handled. Now I know that this one has its fans and I certainly respect that as I do like a lot of stuff in here. However my issues with it are just too big to ignore and it overall just fell short of being on par with the first. Still I’m sure there are plenty kids and families that enjoy watching this and the original as Halloween stables and I will admit that I do find myself re visiting some of the funnier jokes every now and then. With that said join me next time around as we will take a look at what happens when the Drac Pack decides to go on a summer vacation!
Rating: C+
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