A humorous take on the ‘Monsters v/s
Humans’ saga, the film, ‘Hotel Transylvania’, is about a whimsical, harmless
Dracula, who wants to protect his daughter from the ‘dangerous’ human world.
With spectacular animation, some great
dialogues and several hilarious sequences, ‘Hotel Transylvania’ will turn out
to be a riot with the kids. The screenplay is found wanting, in the sense that
the main conflict isn’t convincing enough. However, it is a nice watch and will
definitely keep you entertained.
Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler), who is
weary of anything and everything to do with humans, builds this hotel, which
houses monsters and protects them from the dangerous human civilization. His
hatred for that kind goes back to the time when his wife was forced to kill
herself owing to the protests by the humans.
He has a daughter Mavis (voiced by Selena
Gomez), whom he has kept confined in the Hotel for 118 years. Mavis is an
inquisitive person and is keen to venture into the outside world, but her father
always prevents her from doing so.
On the occasion of her 118th birthday
party, which is attended by the who’s who of the monster world including
Frankenstein, Murray the Mummy, Wayne and Wanda Werewolf, Griffin the Invisible
Man among others, a human, 21 year old Jonathan (voiced by Andy Samberg) is the
gate crasher at this exclusive monster hotel.
The problem arises when the Dracula
realizes that Jonathan is getting closer to Mavis (who doesn’t realize that the
boy is a human). He tries to keep Jonathan away from the monsters at the party
and this comedy-of-errors leads to a lot of untoward, yet rib-tickling,
incidents.
The film has plenty of delightful moments,
thanks to the humorous dialogues and some rip-roaring sequences in the
screenplay. Even the voiceovers, especially those of Adam Sandler, Gomez and
Samberg, are wonderfully done. The lovely visuals, with a fairly decent
augmentation thanks to 3D, are one of the better ones, among the animated films
of 2012. One of the better moments of the film features the self-deprecating
jokes by the monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula and Invisible Man end up being the
butt of most jokes, and such lovely moments will definitely be relished by the
younger audiences. Even the scenes in which Jonathan belts out contemporary
music pieces and the old-fashioned monsters have a scandalous look on their
faces are quite amusing.
The only problem with the film is that its
conflict isn’t convincing enough. There is no real antagonist in the film. This
aspect does diminish the engagement-level to some extent. Director Genndy
Tartakovsky pulls off a fine animated film. The concept is quite unique and
even the execution is very impressive.
The fun film will definitely work with the
kids. The human-monster camaraderie and the monster-monster interactions are
bound to keep the adults entertained as well.
Shivom Oza
Eye-catching animation and non-stop jokes make this animated monster movie a lot more fun than we expect. It's packed with gross-out gags that will keep kids laughing, plus clever character-based humour for the grown-ups. :D
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