[3.8/10] I love the work of Genndy Tartakovsky. *Samurai Jack* is a stirring, spiritual, wide-ranging epic, and one of the few television series with a revival season that knocked it out of the park. *Star Wars: Clone Wars* is one of the few beacons of light to burst through the Prequel film, stretching the Galaxy Far Far Away in inventive ways until it became larger than life. *Primal* is a masterpiece -- a heartfelt work of bonding amid tragedy with visuals that will both amaze you and break your heart. Tartakovsky and his talented collaborators are master artisans, crafting gorgeous, moving work that sits comfortably among the best moving images of the twenty-first century.
And all it took to drain such artistry of any life or soul was a doomed encounter with the worst blood sucker of them all -- Adam Sandler.
I am a red-blooded American male who grew up during the 1990s. Which is to say, I once loved Adam Sandler. Like all budding numbskulls, I used to do an impression of his penguin-taunting manchild from *Billy Madison*. I quoted his “pieces of shit for breakfast” comeback in *Happy Gilmore*. I belted “The Chanukah Song” in the car with friends and imitated his various goofy characters from *Saturday Night Live*. I’m not immune to the charms of his happy-go-lucky dumbass persona.
But (gulp) thirty years later, and the same shtick has worn thin. The umpteenth silly voice is just embarrassing at this point. A meager attempt to turn frat humor into dad humor has all the comic punch of a feather duster. And Sandler’s feeble efforts to do the overprotective dad thing might be something the daughter-casting star can relate to, but his broad antics lose any truth in a sea of overdone schlock.
Which is all to say that *Hotel Transylvania* is the same kind of unfunny junk Sandler has been lazily churning out for years now, without even the excuse of a free trip for him and his friends given the animated medium. The suck of his usual routine and decaying brand of humor is so bad, that it overwhelms even the incredible creative sensibilities of Tartakovsky, which are no match for the generifying Sandler machine of the star’s late obsolescence.
This is assuredly damning with faint praise, but the best you can say for the movie is that it’s better than Sandler’s last big swing at animation, the truly execrable *Eight Crazy Nights* from ten years hence. Not for nothing, the two films share a few things in common: the bottom of the barrel humor, Sandler casting his real life wife as his character’s romantic interest, and the emotional turning point coming when a child reads a note from their dead parent. Suffice it to say, Sandler carrying anything over from that cinematic crater is nothing worth praising, and if these two efforts are what the Sandman brings to animation, perhaps he should do the medium a favor and stick to his live action pursuits.
If you squint, you can see the core of a decent enough movie if it had come out on neutral terms rather than become a vehicle for the latest Sandler slop. Of note, the “overprotective dad needs to learn to get over his fears about his child after losing his wife” is the same concept *Finding Nemo* rode to brilliance. Translating that notion to a spooky setting could pay dividends, both in making room for scads of monster mash gags, and for being able to play up the metaphor of mistrust between humans and creatures of the night. If you’ll pardon the expression, the bones of this one aren't bad.
And now and again, *Hotel Transylvania* even manages to (fleetingly) live up to its potential. There’s something about Sandler’s Count Dracula character bonding with a hapless human doofus named Johnny (played by Sandler’s comedic successor, Andy Samberg) over enchanted table racing that’s endearing. Drac’s epiphany that he’d rather his daughter see the world and get to have her own adventures than become closed off like him is solid.
Plus, there’s some decent subtext about assumptions and prejudice. Johnny’s flirtation with Drac’s daughter, Mavis, has the faintest *Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?*-esque quality to it. Plus, the fact that for all of Count Dracula’s anxieties about humans reflexively hating monsters after his wife was killed by them, modern day humans *love* the classic boogeymen, is a fun, bridge-building twist. Enough decent beats are there to build a respectable film in better hands.
But these are not those hands. Instead, *Hotel Transylvania* delivers all of his in the broadest, most exaggerated way, to where what the various spooks and spirits are ostensibly thinking or feeling doesn’t matter because they’re nothing but zany joke machines rather than actual characters. Even graded on a curve for the simplicity that’s sometimes needed for a kids film, the movie dumbs things down to where even its good intentions run aground on its clumsy execution.
Even if the plot and characterization were better done, so much of this film is just downright annoying, packed in wall-to-wall with some of the hackiest crud and most face-palm inducing jokes you’re likely to see. Beyond the weak and often stereotypical humor, you’ll also be “pleased” to find penis shrinkage jokes, honeymoon sex jokes, mannequin romance jokes, accidental wife-groping jokes, pool vomit jokes, and everything imaginable involving butts: butts farting, butts getting covered in baby powder, if there’s something stupid involving a butt, you can be sure that *Hotel Transylvania* will find some way to work it into the proceedings, no matter how many crickets chip in response. No ifs, ands, or butts about it. (See? I could write for this movie too.)
The tonic to all of this thudding idiocy is supposed to be Tartakovsky and company’s visual acumen. But whether it’s the move to CG animation rather than 2D drawings, or Sony Animation’s house style and studio processes taking precedence, or simply the fact that this was Tartakovsky’s first time directing a feature film, the master’s marks are all but invisible in a movie that feels like generic studio product.
Tartakovsky publicly cited the work of Tex Avery as a touchstone for his work on the movie, and in places, you can see it. There are plenty of exaggerated movements at play. Drac swivels his head with loony flair, walks funny through hidden passages, gesticulates wildly at this or that when incensed. Frankly, though, it’s hard to distinguish that from the default hyperactive approach to animated characters that seems omnipresent these days.
More to the point, in kinetic scenes like zombies faux-attacking Mavis, a hunchback chef dodging ghostly knights and swarming gargoyles, or even the monsters getting down on the dance floor -- all the type of thing Tartakovsky has depicted well before and since this movie -- the results are fine at worst, but lack the balletic touch and brilliant composition that the director and his collaborators are known for. The saving grace for this film should be its visuals, and while they’re solid at worst, they don’t shine, certainly not bright enough to extinguish Sandler’s undead influence.
Mike Tyson, of all people, once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” I’m not keen on quoting Tyson, so perhaps we should adjust the saying to, “Every artist has a vision until they collide with an Adam Sandler movie.”
I have no enmity for Sandler being able to cash in on his name and hang out with his friends in the guise of making movies. It’s a good gig if you can get it. But if the demands of a studio and its star can sand down the edges of something so much that even the fingerprints of a virtuoso like Tartakovsky are all but invisible, then perhaps it’s a sign to change course and recognize that *Hotel Transylvania* should have stayed in the coffin where it belongs.
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