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Movie Review: Hotel Transylvania 3 - Junk food for children
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In the third installment of the animated movie series "Hotel Transylvania", Drac, his family and friends go out on a holiday in which he falls in love with the human Captain of a cruise-ship. As in previous installments, you'll find caricature-like characters, visual mayhem and colorful humor, but mostly the feeling that the series had run its course.
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You don’t watch Genndy Tartakovsky's (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack) animated films and tv-shows for the big ideas, revolutionary stylish perception or a well-built script that makes you lean back and say "ohh… Pixar". The goal is colorful, visual humor, sort of "Junk Food", but one that's created out of genuine intent to make something that is totally fine. Nothing less, yet certainly nothing more. The "Hotel Transylvania" movie franchise, who's now arriving to its third part - "Hotel Transylvania: Summer Vacation", doesn't meaningfully digress from the quality of the last two movies. That is to say, of course there will be worse animated movies to which parents can be tempted to take their children, but eventually "Hotel Transylvania 3" is a movie that may well be, or even should be, skipped entirely.
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The theme at the heart of the franchise is the question of whether one can accept the other. The basic flip here is that the "others" are just regular humans, and the heroes are the monsters. These creatures are mostly based upon Universal Studios' monsters from the 30s. Lovable, caricature-like characters, amusing freaks who wouldn’t hurt a fly. From the perspective of those creatures, the one underlined in the movies, the human is the one that's abnormal and dangerous. The series' chapters deal with the stages of those creatures' integration into the human world.
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The leader of the pack is as mentioned, Drac – not the famous Yiddish word – but Tartakovsky's and Adam Sandler's vision to the character of Dracula. Indeed, it's not surprising that echoes regarding the creators' Jewish identity run through this collaboration when it comes to the possible integration of the monsters (especially prevalent during the 2nd installment, which Sandler co-wrote). Drac is the owner of Hotel Transylvania – a resort for monsters that becomes less and less relevant with each passing chapter of the series.
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Drac is a widower who raises his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). His attempt of distancing her from the realm of humans (with whom he had bitter experience) concludes at the end of the 1st movie when she falls in love with the human Johnny (Andy Samberg). In the 2nd movie, after Mavis and Johnny get married, the big question revolves around Dennis (Asher Blinkoff), their son – will he be a regular human boy or a vampire. After the answer to that question is revealed (vampire!) the series pivots to handle Drac's being a lonely widower – and here also lies the opportunity to further deepen the connection with the human world.
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The premise of the 3rd part goes back to the end of the 19th century, to a series of failed attempts by Professor Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) to capture Drac. Van Helsing uses different traps and devices but Drac manages to escape repeatedly. It's in fact a dynamic reminiscing of Wile E. Coyote chasing after the "Road Runner" (Just the initials of ACME from the Warner Brothers studios are missing). Van Helsing is expected to return in his steampunk form, half human/half machine (a combination of a vacuum cleaner and a kettle) – determined more than ever to finish the job.
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The opening highlights the thing Tartakovsky is relatively good at – animation of bodily gestures and caricature characters. But "relatively" is the key-word. An overflow of gags through the entire movie is no match for a well thought short animation piece by Chuck Jones. It's not a question of the fast pace young viewers are accustomed to, and the understanding that adhering to this demand is misplaced. It's a flaw present through the entire movie, with problems involving timing and abundancy that blur jokes with actual potential, while burying mediocre ones (no short on that front).
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At present time, Drac's starting to make his first steps towards finding a partner using the "Zinger" app. The app's name derived from "Zing". That's the term being used within the monster's world for love at first sight, which also happens once in a lifetime – so squeezing all of love's clichés to one word. But the non-human roster in the "Zinger" app doesn’t deliver.
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Mavis interrupts her father during his quest to find a partner. She misinterprets his stress and decides that it's work-load related. Her solution is to invite him and his friend to a vacation aboard a cruise ship. Drac and his gang – Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) and his wife Wanda (Molly Shannon), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Murray the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key), Frank(estein) (Kevin James) and his wife Eunis (Fran Drescher), and Blobby, a green heap of Jell-O, all find themselves aboard the cruise ship that only caters to monsters. Last but not least is the addition from the last movie, and the one who anchors the Jewish subtext – Vlad (Mel Brooks), Drac's father.
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The central plot line is Drac's (immediate, of course) falling in love with the cruise ship's captain – Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). But Ericka's got a lineal link to Drac's mortal enemy. The cruise turns into a quest towards Drac's site of destruction – unless love will prevail. Until that's settled, Ericka, who is impatient as well as trigger-happy when it comes to carnage, tries to settle the score with Drac before arriving at his certain place of demise.
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In addition to this central plot line, there are a few constrained, feature-long subplots. Each one of them based on a limited idea that the movie doesn’t make an effort developing in an interesting direction. Frank is addicted to gambling, Dennis smuggles his giant dog onboard, the werewolf and his wife dump dozens of their offsprings on top of the ship's crew.
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There's a lot of visual clutter created by the different monsters thanks to their vivid colors and frantic movement. Every moment in the movie should contain small gags, some of them on the edge of the frame. But this concept, admirable on its own, depends on the ability to create jokes that work. "Hotel Transylvania 3" doesn’t construct the gags with the required precision on their way to an effective "punch-line". It's another chapter in an insignificant franchise whose central plot line had run its course.
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