Hotel Transylvania

                 Did you know Dracula had a daughter?  According to the animated movie Hotel Transylvania he does.  Dracula (Adam Sandler) keeps his daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez), hidden away in the hotel he runs as a safe haven for other monsters.  He is a devoted father and he does not want Mavis to get hurt by the humans of the outside world.  Throughout Mavis’ childhood this is fairly easy for Dracula to do.  Then Mavis turns 118 and everything changes.

                Dracula promised Mavis that when she turned 118 years old she could go out and explore the world.  The day has now come and Mavis cannot wait to venture out.  Dracula agrees to let Mavis go, but only for a short time as there is a hotel full of guests waiting to celebrate her birthday.  He suggests a village she can get to and back from quickly.  Mavis agrees this village is a good plan and she sets off on her adventure.  What Mavis does not know is the village her father is sending her to is fake.  It is a village he created for this day.  He set it up so the “humans” of the village attack Mavis causing her to never want to leave the hotel again.

                The plan works and Mavis returns to the home very sad.  She had been so excited about going to the village, but the “attack” by the “humans” ruined it for her.  Mavis never wants to go out again and a happy Dracula continues the party.

                Everything is going smoothly and as Dracula organized it.  Everyone is in attendance including Frankenstein (Kevin James) and Wayne Werewolf (Steve Buscemi).  The guests are all mingling and having a good time.  Then an unexpected guest arrives: a human.  To make it worse, it is a boy human.

                Dracula is shocked a human has gotten through his extensive security.  The boy, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is a traveler and does not think walking through a spooky forest is such a big deal.  He is more fascinated about the party he has just walked into.  To Jonathan, it looks like a costume party, not a party of monsters.

                Quite rattled at the appearance of a human, Dracula tries to get Jonathan to leave.  Jonathan does not want to go and Dracula must figure out something else to do with him.  The monsters would not be happy to find a human amongst them.  Humans and monsters do not exactly have the best track record.

                Desperate, Dracula dresses Jonathan up as a monster.  He is still nervous, but Dracula feels they may be in the clear until he can get Jonathan out of the hotel.  What he does not take into consideration is Mavis.  She sees Jonathan and it is love at first sight.  Getting rid of Jonathan has just become more difficult.

                This is a cute movie.  At times there was too much bathroom humor for my taste, but it was never to the point where I wanted to turn the film off.  Most of the film’s humor was clever and worked well with the story.  I liked how all these monsters we have heard about being scary for so long were made to be friendly.  There was only once character who was a tad cranky and that was the Chef Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz).  He and his rat know there is a human amongst the guests.  They just do not know who it is and they make a nuisance of themselves trying to figure it out.

                A lot of different celebrities had their voices featured in the film. Some I recognized easily, others I did not. In the end, it does not matter to me whose voice was in the movie. They all did a good job, no matter how well-known. It probably helped they had a good, well-written story to work with. That makes a big difference in how successful a film is. With these positive elements and nice animation, I would definitely call Hotel Transylvania a success.

            Corrected the name of the actor who voiced Jonathan (Andy Samberg) on 5/11/16.

                  Changed the text alignment on 5/11/16.