Hotel Transylvania 3
Cert: U / 97 mins / Dir. Genndy Tartakovsky / Trailer
Yeah, I wasn't going to watch this, but I've sat through the first two and my #FilmDay had a gap to fill.
So, much in the same way as a TV sitcom whose writers landed a commission for a spin-off feature film then had no real idea how to continue their story on the big screen, Hotel Transylvania 3 takes its characters out of the eponymous location and off on holiday*1. This is effectively an animated reboot of Are You Being Served. Fewer 'pussy' jokes, though.
Speaking of which, the script here is outstandingly ordinary, a quality which is reflected in the voice-cast's delivery. Smiles and chuckles come from the slapstick and sight-gags, but even these are used too sparingly for a movie which desperately wants you to think that it's fun. And an Indiana Jones-esque action-sequence in the middle arrives thoroughly un-earned.
There's a dearth of ambition about the whole project, as if the filmmakers were aiming for the 97 minute runtime as a mark of success, rather than the telling of a good story. It's not so much that Hotel Transylvania 3 should be better (the preceding two films have proved that much), more that the writers are more interested spending time sharing uninteresting characters with little or nothing to actually say on any subtextual level. The father/daughter bonding and outsider-acceptance themes of the other entries have given way to Holiday On The Buses.
Considering that the Hotel Transylvania series is a 21st century animated comedy about monsters where imagination really is the only limit to what we see, there's a remarkable lack of imagination on display. Huge swathes of the movie feel like padding, and your visual storytelling technique has to be called into question when your screenplay features characters throughout the film just describing exactly what's happening on-screen, like a build in audio-description track.
The U-certificate means the execution of this has about as much edge as a marshmallow of course, but that's always been the way for these, and was unlikely to change at this late stage. But Sony's animation team have come on in leaps and bounds with the movement and texturing looking better than ever, although the character design for non-monster characters feels uninspired (plus, their propensity for retail-product placement is as mortifying as ever).
Much like Marvel's Inhumans, the most relatable character in this troubled production is a giant CGI dog who doesn't really have any dialogue.
The first two films in the series.
No.
No.
No.
No, you'll agree with me.
No.
Level 1: The guy behind the outstanding Star Wars: Clone Wars micro-series is, inexplicably, the director co-writer of this.
*1 Okay wait, have we really had three Hotel Transylvania films now where a "welcome to the Hotel California" pun hasn't been made? This tells you everything you need to know about the series' approach to comedy writing, of course. Not that it has the stoic restraint to avoid a glaringly obvious pun which seems like the sole reason the title was chosen, but more that the writing team didn't know it was there in the first place. [ BACK ]
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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