Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

If the movie I saw yesterday, Belle, represents what animation can truly do and be, then Hotel Transylvania: Transformania represents what it all too often is - A passable and pleasant time waster for kids that adults won't find offensive.  The fourth, and supposedly final, entry in the long-running kid's franchise, this is a film with some cute moments and likeable characters, but it's bound not to stick in anyone's mind after it's over.

The good news is that despite the absence of two of the original actors (Adam Sandler and Kevin James stayed out this time), and original director Genndy Tartakovsky not returning to helm (though he did help with the screenplay and is credited as one of the producers), this should not anger long-time fans.  The movie still feels much in line with what came before, and it maintains its memorable visual style that often seems inspired by the classic Looney Tunes shorts, and allows these characters to freely bend, snap and zip about the screen to create exaggerated movements that often made me chuckle more than the dialogue.  As always, it's the script that's not up to the visuals.  While it's not bad in the slightest, and it has a bit more going on in its plot than the last entry did, it just never comes across as anything memorable.  It's perhaps fitting that the movie is debuting on Amazon Prime (after its planned theatrical release got canceled last year), as it feels right at home on the small screen.

Transformania finds franchise lead, Count Dracula (voice by Brian Hull, successfully stepping in for Sandler), planning to retire from running the titular Hotel, and enjoying time with his new human bride Ericka (Kathryn Hahn).  His plan is to leave the Hotel under the care of his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her human husband, Johnny (Andy Samberg).  But when Johnny causes a ruckus during the celebration where Dracula plans to announce his retirement, the vampire gets cold feet about turning the place over, and lies to Johnny, telling his son-in-law that there is a law that only monsters can run the Hotel.  Disappointed, Johnny turns to reformed monster hunter, Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan), who has invented a device powered by a crystal that can turn a human into a monster, and vice versa.  After some required slapstick, Johnny is transformed by the ray into a giant dragon-like creature, while Dracula becomes a middle aged human with thinning hair and a pot belly.

Many of the other monsters staying at Hotel become affected by the device, leading to some fun visuals that the movie sadly doesn't exploit as much as it could have.  Frank the Frankenstein's Monster (Brad Abrell, stepping in for Kevin James) becomes a hunky human model, Wayne the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi) loses all of his fur, but keeps a beard in his human form, Murray the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key) turns into a 5,000 year-old man without his bandages, and it turns out Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) has been naked the entire time, and now everyone knows it.  To reverse the effect, our heroes have to travel to South America where another crystal can be found to power the device.  This leads to some jungle adventure scenes that play kind of like a demo for a video game tie-in, or perhaps a thrill ride attraction.

Running at only 75 minutes minus the credits, this latest Hotel Transylvania certainly doesn't overstay its welcome, and never offends, but it can't help but feel slight.  The problem could lie with the fact that I chose to watch this after a film like Belle, but even if I did choose to view this before it, I don't think my reaction would be too different.  Like the other movies, it's visually pleasing, and there are a lot of fun ideas which it never gets around to exploiting.  There are some callbacks to the previous films that I enjoyed (I was happy to see the return of the airline run by the destructive Gremlins.), but the entire experience also felt a bit middling overall.  This is a film franchise that I have always kind of admired for its animation, but has never completely clicked with me.  It's probably not surprising that this one didn't either, but if you have been taken in by this series in the past, I can see this one doing the same.

As always, I liked these characters and the actors portraying them (even the new ones filling in for the old stand-bys), but the writing simply failed to grab me.  If you have kids who want to watch this, I'd normally say go ahead, but there's a film I've already talked about playing in theaters this weekend that is more deserving of your time and money.

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