Michael Ledo The film opens with a loving nurturing Dracula caring for his daughter in 1895. In order to protect her from evil humans he constructs a huge castle as a refuge for monsters which include, Frankenstein, wolfman, invisible man, bigfoot, zombies, ghouls, Quasimodo etc. We then move to the present as his teen looking daughter turns 118 and wants to see the world. Before the first human shows up we already know the script.There were a number of fun things about the monsters that kids would enjoy but adults will find tiresome. Dracula constantly denies saying "blah, ba-blah, ba-blah." There is one scene the kids laughed at and that was when someone pulled down the swimming trunks of the Invisible Man. He quickly pulls them back up, tells people "I just got out of the pool! It's cold! Don't judge me!" At one point the Invisible Man is playing charades, which he admits, "I'm not very good at."At one point Dracula asks if humans would accept them (the monsters) if they "came out." I'm sure there was some kind of message there.As an adult, I was basically bored with the film which had such great potential. 4 stars from a kids view. Not really scary or funny.

Cineanalyst I'm sure plenty of children and families adore "Hotel Transylvania," but not every animated kiddie movie is without intelligence, so I'm not going to cut it any slack. Another animated monster kids movie, Pixar's "Monster's, Inc." (2001), for instance, is kind of clever in its use of doors to multiple universes. And, although not animated, "The Monster Squad" (1987) manages to pay homage to classic monster movies and remain charming despite some childish humor. "Hotel Transylvania" features many of the same monsters as that film and more, including Dracula and his daughter, Frankenstein and his bride, werewolves, mummies, an invisible man, a gillman and Quasimodo, but they've basically nothing to do with their sources in novels or prior movies. They're more akin to the monster cereals, such as Count Chocula and Frenken Berry--mere caricatures, overly sweet and not very good for you.In "Hotel Transylvania," Dracula has clipped the wings, so to speak, of his bat daughter, but he must learn to allow her to fly the coop. He also runs a hotel for monsters. The Dracula of "Nocturna" (1979) did the same thing, the film also had plenty of music like this one (except it was disco), and Dracula's daughter fell in love with a human. The similarities stop there, though, since "Nocturna" also had gratuitous nudity and an old Dracula complaining about how his reproductive organs don't work as well anymore (although, here, the Invisible Man defends the size of his in one pool-side gag). "Hotel Transylvania," on the other hand, has Count-less butt jokes, including a fart that's let on fire. I'm not sure which is worse, but I know fire is bad.There's a joke at the expense of the "Twilight" series, where Dracula sardonically remarks, "This is how we're represented." Right back at you, Count Chocula; "Hotel Transylvania" isn't fang-tastic, either. Nor had I ever heard Dracula say "blah blah blah," and I've seen well over 50 Dracula movies since reading Bram Stoker's novel. Perhaps, the worst caricature of all, though, is Quasimodo as the hotel chef. Why is he a chef? Because he's French, I guess. That's racist. Anyways, the movie wraps up like a bad rom-com but replaces the father for the girl or boy chasing down the other for a grand romantic gesture. It's kind of like "The Wedding Singer" (1998) and with the same actor.Another quibble I have with this movie is that when they list off Dracula's vulnerabilities--sunlight, garlic, stakes to the heart--they don't mention crosses. I get that they threw out all of the sex and violence from Dracula--even though that was most of Stoker's book--it's a kid's movie, after all. But the religion? I think that was a shrewd commercial move to avoid offending any audience, except for maybe cranky old Dracula buffs like me. But, they've made millions of dollars off this franchise and, as of this writing, about to release the third movie installment, so they know what they're doing. I don't have to like it, though.(Mirror Note: No mirror shots in this Dracula movie, either.)

redanhemma I had heard a lot about this one being good, so I decided to watch it but was rather underwhelmed. Most of all what kind of bothered me was the constant happy-cheery-jokey kind of stuff going on. I get that the target audience is young children, but I don't think that necessarily means you need to make everything so silly and cheesy. I've seen a lot of really great children's movies that were more serious (though still age-appropriate of course) and only had the occasional funny bit. Especially considering the monster theme, I did not expect this level of silly and cheesy.And while on the topic of the monster theme, that's another thing that kind of bugged me. Maybe I'm just stuck up, I don't know, but it bothers me when creators take too much of a creative liberty with established classical characters or beings/creatures, or in some cases they just got things wrong (like the oh so typical case of calling the monster Frankenstein when that's in fact the name of the man who made him, that's a massive pet peeve of mine, and just generally making his character entirely wrong). I suppose I just prefer more old- fashioned monsters. And... Why is Quasimodo not human, and more importantly, why is he some sort of crazy fiery chef??? Speaking of which, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame is a pretty good example of how a movie for children can still be pretty dark and serious without CONSTANT comic relief.Overall the movie is not awful or anything, not at all, but much too goofy, over-the-top, predictable to a ridiculous extent, and not very "authentic" with its monsters. I'd say it has too much of a modern tone as well, if that makes any sense. This could have been so much better if the creators had the courage to be more unique.

Eric Stevenson I'm skeptical to like anything by Adam Sandler, but my hope went up when I found that none other than Genndy Tartakovsky was directing this film. He was a big part of my childhood with cartoons like "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack". Now, I know it's hard to make the transition to CGI, but he made it just fine. It's a pity that this movie didn't do too well with critics, although it still got a much higher score than most of Adam Sandler's movies. Tartakovsky is what makes this movie. What stands out as the best parts are probably how beautifully animated this film is. The colors are gorgeous and there's so much movement.I keep hearing there's lots of hidden things in this, but I didn't see most of them. I'm normally not a fan of celebrity voices, but it was done well here, especially considering the sheer number of bad movies of any kind these actors have been in. While I praise the film for being wacky, I really did get the emotional bits in it. There's lots of great jokes of course. I admit that some parts of it aren't that good. It's weird how they are so easily accepted into the human world. It's kind of a dues ex machina. I saw the second movie first and I think this one is better, but they're both enjoyable. ***