Hotel Transylvania 2
Sometimes what you need is a
really good laugh. For awhile now, the
best films to help me with this have been the animated ones. I am finding that in animated films there are a
lot more clever lines and not as much slapstick. Since that is how I like my comedies,
animated films are the way for me to go.
Hotel
Transylvania 2 is the sequel to Hotel Transylvania, an animated film
from a few years ago. This time around,
Count Dracula’s (Adam Sandler) daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her human
boyfriend, Johnny (Andy Samberg) have gotten married. Soon after their honeymoon, Mavis discovers
she is pregnant. Mavis understands that
with having a human father, her and Johnny’s child may turn out to be human and
not a vampire. Dracula does not believe
this is possible. Of course his grandchild
will be a vampire. When the child, a
son, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff), is born, Dracula does whatever he can to bring
out the vampire side. Unfortunately,
nothing works. This really distresses Mavis,
not because she had to have her son be a vampire, but because she worries he
won’t be accepted if he isn’t. If Dennis
is human, Mavis believes it would be
best to raise him around other humans.
She decides that the best thing for Dennis would be to leave
Transylvania and move to California where Johnny’s parents live.
Not
surprisingly, Dracula is not for this plan.
Neither is Johnny, for that matter.
He is happy living in Transylvania, and that is where he wants to stay. So Dracula and Johnny hatch a scheme together
in order to convince Mavis that staying in Transylvania is the best
option. Johnny will take Mavis to
California for a vacation while Dracula cares for Dennis. While Mavis is away, Dracula will work extra
hard to bring out Dennis’s vampire side, proving to Mavis that Dennis is
exactly where he belongs.
The
plan does not go as smoothly as everyone expects. Mavis loves everything about California. Johnny tries to downplay things she gets
excited about, but it doesn’t work. Mavis believes California would be the perfect
place to raise their son and no one is going to convince her otherwise.
Back
in Transylvania, all of Dracula’s attempts to bring out the vampire in Dennis
are failing. He has enlisted the
assistance of his friends, but the really aren’t much help. They’re so used to being accepted for who
they are, that all of them have forgotten how to be monsters. When Dracula tells them to set a monster
example for Dennis, they can’t figure out how to do it. This causes Dracula to go to even more
drastic measures. After discovering his
childhood vampire camp is not what it used to be, Dracula takes Dennis to the
top of the camp’s very rickety tower. He
believes that by throwing Dennis off of it, Dennis will instinctively fly. When that doesn’t happen, and Mavis finds out
what Dracula did, Dracula’s entire world falls apart. Mavis declares she is taking Dennis away from
Transylvania, and that they will leave after his 5th birthday
party. Distraught, Dracula holds onto a
small glimmer of hope that Dennis will still turn into a vampire before his
birthday, encouraging Mavis to stay. At
least he does until he finds out Mavis has invited his father, Vlad (Mel
Brooks), to the party. Then a whole
bunch of other concerns come to Dracula’s mind.
As
I said before, this film is really funny.
I particularly liked the scene where the monsters tried to act like
monsters again after having spent so much time behaving otherwise. The werewolf, Wayne (Steve Buscemi) is
especially funny as he explains how he doesn’t hunt anymore because he doesn’t
need to. His hunting skills are
definitely not what they used to be, and Wayne is far better off chasing
Frisbees than searching for food.
Another
great moment was when the invisible man, Griffin (David Spade) tried to
convince everyone he has an invisible girlfriend. The scene where he pretended they were
drinking champagne together was really funny, as were so many others throughout
the film. In fact, the only thing I
didn’t particularly like was how quickly Mavis shunned the way she was raised
once her son was born. Even though she
did not yet know if her son was a vampire or not, she pushed aside all her
vampire ways. It was sad to see Mavis
reject so much of who she was, and it was clear Dracula was hurt by it too.
Since I had such a great time with both this film and the one that came before it, I would look forward to a third one being made. I’m not sure what the storyline would be, but I’m sure the creators will come up with something. All I hope is that it’s as funny and clever as the first two films have been.
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