Review:
"Hotel Transylvania 3:
Summer Vacation"
Release Date: July 13, 2018
Rating: PG Running Time: 97 minutes Even monsters who run a hotel for monsters need a vacation every now and then. In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Adam Sandler’s Drac Pack takes to the high seas for an eventful cruise to Atlantis. Unexpected additions to the itinerary: Count Dracula zinging for a human being and a deadly threat by the hotelier’s arch-enemy, vampire slayer Professor Abraham Van Helsing (voiced by Jim Gaffigan). The decision by director and co-writer Genndy Tartakovsky to move this threequel away from Dracula’s place of business is a wise one: the franchise benefits from both a change of scenery and Dracula’s slightly awkward transition from host to guest. Also, the budding romance between the lovelorn Dracula and Erika, the Kathryn Hahn-voiced ship’s captain Erika, allows Tartakovsky and co-writer Michael McCullers to explore a side of Dracula not revealed in the previous installments. Hahn brings pep and energy to Erika, making her the perfect match for a reinvigorated Sandler, who once again does a passable Bela Lugosi impression. Erika also hides a secret agenda that informs Summer Vacation’s every move, and Hahn has a blast playing up the dilemma that grips Erika almost from the get-go. Dracula’s wooing of Erika minimizes his interactions with his beloved daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez), but that’s fine: it is nice to take a break from Dracula’s smothering behavior toward Mavis. It is also shows an awareness on the part of Tartakovsky and McCullers that the relationship between Mavis and her human soulmate Johnny, voiced by Andy Samberg, no longer can drive the franchise’s narrative now that they are married with a child. In fact, Mavis and Johnny are mostly left on the sidelines as Dracula courts Erika, with Samberg only required to put in a minimum of effort during Summer Vacation’s climatic DJ battle. The rest of the returning voice cast—Kevin James as Frankenstein, David Spade as the Invisible Man, Keegan-Michael Key as the Mummy, and Mel Brooks as Vlad, Dracula’s father—barely makes an impression. Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon, though, have a few funny scenes as the werewolf couple who discover the joys of dumping their kids at the cruise ship daycare centers. Tartakovsky artfully constructs some amusing set pieces— Van Helsing’s opening credits efforts to kill a pre-Hotel Transylvania Dracula, an airplane flight staffed by gremlins, Dracula and Erika’s attempts to retrieve an ancient artifact in Atlantis—that rank among the franchise’s highlights. The less said about the aforementioned DJ battle, the better, unless you happen to like one of the annoying hit songs recorded in the past 25 years. Summer Vacation ends as you would expect it to end for a franchise that seeks to find common ground between communities normally in conflict. It also serves a fitting way to close a franchise that, unlike Dracula, is starting to show its age. Robert Sims Aired: July 12, 2018 Web site: https://sites.sonypictures.com/hoteltransylvania3/site/ |
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