*** outta *****

3 outta 5

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is a hyper and energetic movie. Maybe a wee bit too much. It sometimes may confuse “fun” with “incredibly loud” and “excellent pacing” with “extremely frantic”.  But the jokes come at such a rapid pace that it’s going to land a few big laughs as the visual and emotional aesthetic is nicely old fashioned. Sure, there’s Adam Sander and his usual gaggle of chuckle buddies providing voices but they are decent. There are much better animated choices out there, one should see Incredibles 2 straight away, but this is enjoyable.

Drac (Sandler) is running a hotel for monsters but he is overworked, much to the dismay of his daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez). So she decides to pack up her dad along with her DJ husband, Johnny (Adam Samberg) and their kids. Also she brings Grandpa Vlad (Mel Brooks) and Drac’s best friends Frank (Kevin James), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) and Murray the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key). They arrive at a cruise ship which annoys Drac because, as he correctly points out, it’s just a hotel on water. The ship is captained by Ericka (Kathryn Hahn) who Drac immediately takes a liking to. He calls his feelings a “zing”, a monster term for love that he hasn’t felt since his wife has passed away. What none of them know is that Ericka is the great granddaughter of Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan), Drac’s sworn enemy, and they are secretly plotting to do away with Drac and all monsters.   

There are some decent scenes in here, mostly in just quick montages. Things are at their best when it’s not exactly focusing on plot and instead just random cutaways of monsters doing wacky monster stuff in Hawaiian shirts. Probably the best scene is a montage of Van Helsing failing at dispatching Drac throughout the years as he vows to try again. It’s a very much like Wile E. Coyote getting blown up again and again. Also the crew travels on Gremlin airlines and the scene is gleefully nuts as the Gremlins are destroying the plane as they fly it. In its best moments, the movie recalls the frantic pace of classic Warner Brothers cartoons. In its worst moments, it can be a bit of a headache.     

All three Hotel Transylvania films have been directed by Genndy Tartakovsky who has done visually stunning animated work like Star Wars: Clone Wars and Samurai Jack.  This certainly isn’t as thematically heavy as his other efforts, it’s Tartakovsky slumming it with Hollywood bigwigs like Adam Sandler and crew, but he has such a distinct and peppy eye that it’s hard for Tartakovsky to make anything visually dull. There is a scene where Ericka repeatedly tries to kill Drac as he grooves along the deck with his green blob buddy but Blobby is indestructible so it just sort of bounces off of the blob and they keep dancing, hilariously oblivious to any danger. It’s all very silly but still funny.  Still the movie is constantly dialled up to 11 so things can be a bit loud such as Drac’s friends’ squealing reactions which can get somewhat irritating. 

Sandler does a typical old school Dracula vampire accent but with a bit of his Brooklyn whine worked in there. Drac is very much late-period Adam Sandler where he’s a good guy who wants to look after his family which isn’t as much fun as early Sandler where he was an unhinged maniac. The plot line of him looking for love, or “zing” as the annoying euphemism goes, also feels like a plot for a late period Sandler film. Interestingly, the powers that Drac has are very old like the ability to turn into a bat, or move things with his mind. These powers have been dropped from pop-culture vampire mythos over the years so it’s fun to see it back.

Even with all the monsters in the film, nothing is ever scary or intense. Frankly the Monsters Inc movies can be scarier. Drac’s buddies are supposed to be suburban dads with the funniest bit being the Werewolf and his wife ditching their pack at day care and taking off. Gomez’s worrying daughter has a few fun interactions especially with Samberg’s stream of consciousness rambling husband.      

The character designs are all distinctive which is important in animation. Tartakovsky favours sharp edges which makes the characters stand out in profile. The best design is the extremely elderly Van Helsing whose body has broken down over the years so he’s encased in a steam-powered contraption where he’s basically reduced to a telescoping head and arms. It’s incredibly bizarre but amusing. Also one of the movie’s weirder bits is the kids sneaking their giant dog on board in a trench coat and hat saying it’s their friend “Bob” and the dog says obediently and in perfect English “Hi, I’m Bob!”

Things come together in the end in for a sweeping musical climax that is nicely zany as it shows the healing power songs like “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and the “Macarena” have on interpersonal conflict.  Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation isn’t a classic animated family film but it is a strangely enjoyable one, so that is good enough.