Hotel Transylvania Saga
Torie Crivello
The binary nature of online film criticism can often boil movies down to being either the best thing ever or the absolute worse creation foisted on an unsuspecting Earth. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is an unexpected reminder of why nuance is a necessary ingredient in these kinds of discussions. The fourth installment in the long-running Hotel Transylvania franchise isn't necessarily bad, even by the standards of animated kid's movie sequels. But boy is it perfunctory. The whole film feels like an obligation, resulting in a viewing experience that isn't torturous so much as it is instantly forgettable.
Dracula (Brian Hull, taking over the role from Adam Sandler) is preparing to finally retire after running the titular Hotel Transylvania for centuries. He's decided to leave this vacation destination to his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and, by proxy, her human husband Johnny (Andy Samberg). Dismayed at the thought of a goofball like Johnny taking over his beloved hotel, Dracula tells his son-in-law that he can't legally hand over the place to a human. This results in Johnny using a magical crystal to turn himself into a dragon while the fantastical object also manages to turn Dracula and his cohorts into humans. Reversing these spells will require a dangerous trek to South America to pursue a new crystal while also forcing Dracula and Johnny to work together.
After Hotel Transylvania: Summer Vacation finally gave this series some comedic oomph by focusing squarely on absurdist gags and strange visuals, Transformania, unfortunately, brings things down to Earth again. For one thing, Dracula and Johnny are back to being antagonistic with each other like all the other sequels never happened. It's never a good sign when comedy sequels just backtrack character development to justify lazy narratives (see: Anchorman 2). Meanwhile, turning the monsters into humans largely removes any chances of doing monster-centric gags that could only work in this franchise. The majority of the jokes are instead focused on generic beats related to the monsters dealing with everyday human ailments like loss of hair, mosquito bites, and not being able to fly.
Transformania also stunningly miscalculates where its strengths lie by turning over a shocking amount of screentime to poignant moments. This includes a nails-on-the-chalkboard monologue in the climax from Dracula meant to wrap up the primary emotional storyline of the whole production. But does anyone care about the Hotel Transylvania crew to this degree? Leave the big moments of pathos to PIXAR movies. Across this series, the best Hotel Transylvania moments have been ones leaning on slapstick and visual gags that could only be accomplished in animation. Nobody comes to these movies to cry. Given that, it's a bummer Transformania tries so hard to be a tearjerker and comes off so hollow in its attempts at these beats to boot.
It's not all necessarily a wash, of course. There are some fun character designs to be found in translating recognizable monsters like The Mummy or The Wolfman into everyday humans. Meanwhile, the colorful animation remains as vibrant as ever. Returning voice performers like Kathryn Hahan admirably refuse to sleepwalk through an easy paycheck gig. Meanwhile, though Genndy Tartakovsky has left directorial duties this time around to Jennifer Kluska and Derek Drymon, it's nice that Transformania maintains its predecessor's love for squashing and stretching computer-generated characters to their limits. Plus, young kids are bound to still like Transformania, it'll work fine as a babysitter.
That's about the highest compliment I could pay this newest installment in the Hotel Transylvania saga, though. The whole thing's just a miscalculated exercise that feels especially strained on a storytelling level, with Transformania constantly feeling like it's sweating to figure out how to stretch its premise to a feature-length runtime. This is exemplified by how 19 minutes of Transformania's 97-minute length is comprised of credits. Though obviously not the worst movie of all time, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is an exceedingly disposable enterprise, one that not even Adam Sandler could be bothered to show up for.
Hotel Transylvania 5: Hunting the end is an upcoming American computer animated comedy adventure film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing. After years, this would indeed be the last installment of this Sony saga, directed by chris wedge (known for being the director of The ice age, robots, epic, and monster trucks); and on this occasion, the leading roles change, this time being that the protagonists are Mavis Dracula (Selena Gomez), Johnny (Andy Samberg), and Dennis (Asher Blinkoff). who are now the new owners of the hotel, and totally renovated and rebuilt (after the events of h.t. transformania).
(after the events in Transformania); Mavis, Johnny and Dennis ARE NOW THE NEW OWNERS of the hotel and they will continue and respect the legacy left by their father Dracula, this is clear with their style now that they have remodeled the hotel. But it is clear that the happiness of the 3 was not going to last at all, a "new" enemy would have appeared out of nowhere to ruin the life of Dracula's family: a supposed "HUNTER" of vampires, would have very strong hostile intentions against the daughter of Dracula, her husband and her beloved son, and above all also against monsters.
a few days after the inauguration of the renovation of the hotel (in the style and manner of mavis and Jonathan), and of course they did not do badly at all, on the contrary; All that reconstruction of the hotel benefited them and with this, more monsters from other places and countries stayed there, and earning more money to make more improvements and more remodeling of the hotel, and with this, the hotel became more known.
Mavis (who is Dracula's daughter) did all this together with the help of her husband, Johnatan, who additionally worked as a security guard at an airport; and with what he earned he gave it to the hotel. They do all this to cheer up Dracula (happy), who worked hard at the hotel for a long time, more than anything else, he did it, the only thing that interests her is the happiness of her family, her friends and above all that her father feel proud of her, so that she can see that mavis and her husband can be responsible. She and her family, all this time would be in peace and harmony together with the monsters and humans, and everyone would be happy. but hey, at least that lasted as long as it had to last, because soon something terrible would be coming for the first time in their lives.
On a night like any other, Mavis and Johnny were serving a few guests (monsters) to give them their rooms, one of the bad bats that they had previously fought (basically it was one of Bela's henchmen) arrived out of nowhere. to annoy, persuade and harass those who were there, threatening them that something was coming to them and laughing like crazy. Mavis, already getting annoyed with him and his nonsense, kicked him out with great hostility or rather beatings, saying that he should leave her and her family alone and that he did not take it seriously; He just left the place with his uncomfortable smile, Jonathan, seeing her upset and nervous about what happened, tried to calm her down but she still apologized for acting like that, but what was the right thing to do for monsters or people who acted like that if she didn't understand with words; So with nothing else to do, they all went to their rooms to sleep and forget what happened (but it was a mistake to ignore him almost of his nonsense or his threats, that apparently he wasn't lying about everything). since a surprise attack was coming very soon.
about 3 days after that, mavis had found out that her beloved Jonathan's birthday had already passed, she was sad by not giving him anything or not throwing him any party, but he told her that he did not want to worry her about insignificant things (according to Jonathan), but she did not agree with what he said and promised him that they would have his party later, but he declared that he has what matters most to him in the world besides his backpack, it was her and her son and the hotel (especially Mavis), and he also apologized for being hypocritical or selfish for the fact that he was going to manage the hotel, instead of the 2 of them, and he felt stupid about it. she is happy she kisses him and tells him that she loves him so much, and then Jonathan says that it will be their anniversary soon and that his surprise or gift is nothing more than her and her son, Mavis is happy about that And for their soon-to-be-celebrated anniversary, she decides to pack her bags to go to Hawaii (or as Mavis would say, paradise) where they went for her 118th birthday.
But, a few hours into packing she remembered for a few moments about the hotel and who would take care of it while they were gone for a week, Mavis was a little worried about that and she didn't want to let her father down that she wasn't in the hotel for 7 days, johnny reminded her that there are the friends of drac: frank, murray, blobby and the others so that they run the hotel, mavis loved the idea and was no longer worried about the hotel. from one day to the next, and already with the instructions written down for the drag friends (including things for their son Dennis to take care of him) frank and murray already being clear about what they had to do and talking to the couple to leave calmly They left quietly, but not before someone appeared as if by magic, with a curious outfit and obviously looked like a hunter (he would be responsible for some future disasters that he would cause).
First, he would appear outside the hotel, only staying, seeing what the hotel was like and then those who were inside; Mavis was already uncomfortable, so she was about to run him away, they all stared at each other but turned to look in front and he was not there, again they looked uncomfortable and then she appeared in front of them already inside the hotel, Mavis asking her who he was and what he wanted. He only said a few things.
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