Fridae

Ah, yes. Hot on the trail of Breaking Dawn, Genndy Tartakovsky, known as one of the best TV animators of the 1990s and early 2000s, comes out with this animated family comedy that attempts to portray all your favorite B-movie monsters as you've never seen them before...as genial, friendly, family men!

Count Dracula (Adam Sandler in what might be his least annoying performance in ages) heads this monster mash as the monster world's greatest entrepreneur. In an attempt to hide from the persecution of monsterkind by humans who fear and misunderstand them, he builds Hotel Transylvania to house all the world's monsters seeking a retreat from the activities of men. Surrounded by a haunting graveyard to drive off potential human intruders, the Hotel is run for 118 years as Dracula's daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) comes of age.

All until one day, the Hotel welcomes its first human visitor ever in the form of Johnny (Andy Samberg), a rambunctious loudmouthed young backpacker with an insatiable wanderlust, who has come in quite by accident. Fearing the uproar that would ensue, Dracula disguises Johnny as Frankenstein's (Kevin James) distant relative Johnny Stein, but when Johnny meets Selena, it's love even before first bite. What's an overprotective single Vlad to do?

Anyone who has seen some of Tartakovsky's brilliant cartoons during the 90s and early 2000s like Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack will find much to be disappointed about in what is on overall a workman-like product from an animator whose love and passion seem to be a longing for the days of limited animation (the format adopted in 50s and 60s cartoons that used minimalist backgrounds and frame counts) and whose cartoons were often characterised by the loving interplay of sound and silence. Hotel Transylvania is like most family animated features these days from hit factories, a calculated product offering few surprises visually or technically and mostly predictable gags: Frankenstein keeps breaking up, the Wolfman has too many puppies, et cetera. In comparison to the remarkable ParaNorman from earlier this year, this film offers up unchallenging and uncomplicated moralising about acceptance and tolerance and a tired, hackneyed message about once in a lifetime true love. Still, it's to his credit that Tartakovsky has made all this tolerable and entertaining, even if it is ultimately underwhelming.

Stay for the end credits though to see Tartakovsky finally use his prowess for limited animation to work: it's proof that the more technically sophisticated filmmaking isn't necessarily the most satisfying.