Review: Hotel Transylvania 3

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 ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Hotel Transylvania 2

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2D)
Cert: U / 89 mins / Dir. Genndy Tartakovsky / Trailer



Back in 2012, the first Hotel Transylvania flick had its work cut out somewhat, as it was dropped into the same release slot as ParaNorman and Frankenweenie, both of which enjoyed their ghoulish heritage much more overtly, and both of which also played with heavier themes. This year, however, the Robert Smigel/Adam Sandler-penned sequel has a clear run at the box office, so how does it fare?

The answer is better than last time, if just as blandly, somehow. The main drawback seems to be that the film's 'spooky' setting is just that, rather than a technique to frame a more layered story. Primarily a comedy, the slapstick moments are well timed and executed, but the rest of the humour relies on Addams/Munsters-level punnery, much of which has been done before, elsewhere and with the tongue more firmly in the cheek. The family-audience I sat with guffawed heartily at the film's more riotous scenes, but anything calmer than those (which is the majority of the film) left them worryingly silent.

That said, the film dabbles at bringing some subtext to the party with slightly heavy-handed and faintly insincere themes of xenophobia and cross-generational relevance. They're pretty much slapped down on the table and not pondered over to deeply, but fair play to Smigel and Sandler for having them there at all. The idea that Dracula is still actually running a hotel is largely an afterthought this time round too, presumably because all of those gags were done to death in the first film. Again, credit where it's due, since I'd rather have it fleetingly referenced than a rehash of what went before. Taking the action away from the castle and into the outside world allows it to breathe more than its predecessor could.

Ultimately, Hotel Transylvania 2 doesn't do anything remotely new, but nor does it do anything too badly, which is where it scores its marks. Definitely a film for the younger crowd, there's nothing particularly spooky in there, more what a marketing committee thinks spooky should look like if you want to upset absolutely no-one. Like a Tim Burton cover-version with all the sass and the kitsch stripped away.

As harmlessly enjoyable as it all is, the film loses a point for Sony's shoehorning in of their own branded products whenever a mobile phone or television are on-screen, which is far too often. Shameful product-placement*¹ (yet paradoxically shameless in its implementation).

One thing's for sure though: as Adam Sandler in the digital realm goes, the pixels of Hotel Transylvania 2 are far, far easier to stomach than the pixels of Pixels…

Oh, God no.



This is a Sunday afternoon DVD.

[Even if the words "Blu Ray Disc" are inserted into the film's script with the same deftness and subtlety as the Sony products. There's nothing here that will be lost by watching the film in standard-def.]



With the best will in the world, I should hope not.



It does.



Not really.



There isn't.



Director Genndy Tartakovsky was also the man behind the 2D-animated Star Wars: Clone Wars series.







*¹ Although I'm also genuinely amazed at the Sony-film's numerous references to 'Batman' and 'Batmobile', which are owned by Warner Bros (although these are scripted lines only, there's nothing visual and no intellectual property lines are crossed).

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Pixels

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Pixels (2015 film)

Pixels is a 2015 American comedy film ^{[citation needed]} produced by Columbia Picures and Happy Madison Productions, based on a 1982 video game in which the players control Adam Sandler and Kevin James, urinating over the smouldering ashes of a generation's charred memories of adolescent fun.

The film is directed ^{[citation needed]} by Chris Columbus, rated 12A in the UK, runs for 106 excruciating minutes and holds an overall score of 18% on review-aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
It is a longer, much more painful version of its trailer.

. Contents
. 1 Plot
. 2 Cast
. 3 Scripting
. 4 Effects
. 5 Critical Response
. 6 Summary

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Plot
A sort of shoddily re-hashed Ghostbusters, filtered through Wreck-It Ralph, but with the wit, warmth or inventiveness of neither. After NASA send a video-cassette of gameplay footage into the solar system in 1982, a race of aliens misunderstands the… y'know, what? Fuck it. That's already more effort than the film makes to explain itself.

Evil pixel-y things fall from sky!
Adam Sandler must save world whilst hitting on MILF!
That's about it.
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Cast
• Adam Sandler as a charmless, underachieving man-child in a dead-end 'cable guy' job who's chosen to save the world because he's special, see? (and is friends with the US President) Like all the best ^{[citation needed]} Adam Sandler characters, he doesn't have to change one single iota throughout the entire screenplay, as acceptance by his superiors, the admiration of his peers and the awe of humanity's enemies is all handed directly to him in return for no effort. Most importantly, for a champion video-game player, Sandler himself is never seen actually playing any video games. Not once.

• Kevin James as Adam Sandler's best friend who has inexplicably (ie, it's not explained) been elected US President. At first I thought this could be a subtle play on Bill Gates' 'be nice to geeks' quip, but since his character is demonstrably thick as pigshit and every bit as charming, it hardly underlines the point.

• Josh Gad, who's mostly there because Adam and Kevin are. He plays a geek and conspiracy theorist who is a closeted gay when it suits the script for cheap laughs, but is mostly enamoured by a fictional female game character (Ashley Benson) whose incarnation as an actress is markedly less lifelike than her 8-bit pixelated form.

• Michelle Monaghan as Lieutenant Colonel Van Patten of the US Military who is also a single-mother, but who is still reduced to being The Girl One™ on account of this being an Adam Sandler film.

• Peter Dinklage struts around the film as a cocky, self-absorbed video-game champion with no redeemable qualities until the third-act reveal that he cheated in the Finals, after which he struts around as a cocky, slightly contrite video-game ex-chamption with no redeemable qualities. Dinklage can do comedy, he just doesn't do it here.

• Brian Cox as another X-Men alumnus mistakenly believing that Pixels would be a good way to show that old guys can have fun, too! Plays a constantly angry Army-major stereotype who's so crudely pencilled into the script he's more of a monotype.

• Sean Bean as a Professional Yorkshireman, again, whose role as a British Army major is to unconvincingly yet unquestioningly spout a script full of Americanisms.
The entertainment industry's search for Bean's self-awareness continues.
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Scripting
Sandler clumsily ad-libs his way around a script which took longer to read back than it did to write, whilst the other performers recite their lines with a a combination of disbelief and world-weary acceptance.
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Effects
All things considered, the CGI interpretations of 1980s video-game classics are relatively good. Still not outstanding, but certainly more accomplished than anything else in the film. The 3D presentation is thoroughly under-used, given the film's penchant for having digital creatures flying around the screen at frequent intervals.
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Critical Response
Movie-blog World Of Blackout scored the film 1 out of 7, the site's lowest rating, stating "Pixels is a towering monument to lazy and inept screenwriting and performance; the living embodiment of everything that's wrong with focus-grouped, Hot Topic nostalgia. It's the Hollywood studio-system's equivalent of Peter Kay asking you if you remember Pac-Man for two hours, by the end of which you'll wish you didn't."
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Summary

The film Pixels comprises of an attack on Earth by extra-terrestrials who learned about human civilisation from a VHS cassette launched into space in 1982. The film doesn't go so far as explaining why the alien forces then go on to make references to both Paperboy and Max Headroom, both of which were developed in 1984.

If a film about popular culture can't even get its own references right, why should an audience bother?

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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Blended

Blended
Cert: 12A / 117 mins / Dir. Frank Coraci




On several occasions throughout Blended, Adam Sandler appears to be genuinely inconvenienced that Warner Bros have scheduled a film-shoot in the middle of his budget-deductable holiday. He mopes from scene to scene, each faux-outraged face and forced sheepish grin becoming a mirthless parody of the role that he's the last person to finally get bored of. Between them, Sandler and Barrymore have now traded in any remaining goodwill they built up with The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates, and are going through the motions in a shamelessly mechanical screenplay full of telegraphed callbacks and Playful Stereotyping™.

Oh, and if you're going to have recurring gags, you need to make sure they're actually jokes to begin with, not just "Woman giggles and shakes breasts. Again".

The natural lifespan of this sort of film is 93 minutes, but Coraci drags the whole sorry affair out to just shy of two hours while the audience get bored waiting for the perfunctory ending. By the time Sandler sings a cutesy ukulele-backed song with the kids over the end credits, you'll be wishing the lions in the safari-sequence had turned on the Jeep-full of lunch that was watching them.

Awkward moments! Sassy kids! A-hole exes! Bitchy best friends! Makeover-reveals! Cameo roles for all the people who had cameo roles in previous films! A bit of pathos (she's dead, you see)!

You've seen it all before; you've seen it all better. A lazy film for a lazy audience.
Fuck it, if Sandler's not going to act like he's interested, I don't see why I should.

Oh yes.



I did not.



The sad part is that it probably does.



Just go away.



....



No. No, I won't.



There isn't.

It still looks better than the Mrs Br*wn's B*ys film though, doesn't it?

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Hotel Transylvania (3D)

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Hotel Transylvania (3D)
91 mins / Dir. Genndy Tartakovsky

How do you script an animated film with this title, and not put in a reference to an Eagles song? Maybe because the rest of your screenplay is working on a level so much higher, that you don't need to cheapen it with obvious, generic gags?



Oh. All the jokes are in the trailer. Yes, I know the trailer's only a minute and a quarter long. Yes, I know that minute and a quarter isn't all jokes. All the jokes are in the trailer.

The film's worst crime (and there are several), is how bland it is. The concept behind the setup is a fairly interesting one, but it swings half-heartedly into a father/daughter fable, with Dracula's little girl being the only character showing any trace of genuine emotion. It's sort of like a Tim Burton pastiche, made by a team who've only heard of Tim Burton from other people. And when I see Genndy (Samurai Jack) Tartakovsky's name at the helm, it makes me want to cry.


I still can't work out if this is an endorsement or a warning…

Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg overact to the point of irritation, and any subtlety that the supporting actors try and bring to the flat script is drowned out completely. Meanwhile, the clockwork story lurches along for 90 minutes, and the only thing I kept thinking throughout was "…why isn't this better?" Even the character designs are so generic that the merchandising will look a cheap rip-off of itself.

The only saving graces are some quite beautifully executed animation, and a nicely underplayed (if brief) nod to The Wedding Singer.

Oh, and then Adam Sandler does a rap at the end.

I can't hate it; the animation is smooth, the humour is broad, and Hotel Transylvania accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. Although with such a dearth of ambition, you'd be amazed if it didn't. Acquitted by its own low standards.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.