‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ Review: Non-stop gags

Chris Columbus’ Pixels (2015) proved that Adam Sandler, when hamming up the hero role, is a vicious offense to the senses and the soul. Sandler’s humor is simply incompatible with ordinary virtues that are better handled by Hollywood stars of less divisive tendencies. However, Sandler’s other recent comedies such as the two Grown Ups movies lack the humanity to counter their outward repulsiveness.

Sandler is simply funniest when he acknowledges that he is absolutely noxious to contemporary decorum without losing his human side, which is probably why Sandler’s best work in recent years is his portrayal of a goofy Dracula in Hotel Transylvania (2012), where he fully masks his persona with an animated but quite lovable avatar whose non-stop jokes plays like a themed gag show. 

In the sequel, Sandler does more of the same, and the repetition does not matter. It’s all fun.

 

Chain of punchlines

The sequel opens with Dracula finding himself in the position of the strangely proud father of the bride. His daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) is getting married to non-vampire Californian Jonathan (Andy Samberg) in a wedding ceremony that has monsters and humans converge with comic consequences. 

Several months later, Mavis gives birth to Dennis (Asher Blinkoff), a kid who seems to have inherited all of Jonathan’s human traits, including his carrot-colored mane and jolly disposition, and none of Mavis’ infernal powers.

Dracula still has hopes for Dennis and hatches a plan with Jonathan and his monstrous crew to teach the kid a few things about the monster world to force the fangs out of the ever-ready toddler.

Hotel Transylvania 2 uses the simplistic plot to frame a chain of hilarious punchlines. The story is silly, and Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay with Robert Smigel, makes the most of the silliness to keep the narrative from revealing its derivative roots. The sequel is really all about the non-stop gags. Humor is the fuel that drives the film. 

All other things, including the obligatory lesson about acceptance of differences, are just ornaments to justify a full film out of a buffet of Dracula jokes. 

Half the battle 

Comedy is just half the battle. The rest is up to director Genndy Tartakovsky to envision. Thankfully, Tartakovsky is a very able director, one who knows that the value of good animation is now how it is able to ape real-time appearances and physics but how it is able to exaggerate them to conjure the emotions he wants to conjure.

Hotel Transylvania 2 does not seduce with spectacle, although there are times where the film simply decides to kowtow to the demands of a market hungry for high-speed races above the clouds. 

Tartakovsky concentrates on making the characters of the film fluid enough to provoke laughter out of their silly antics. The details are not peppered on ornaments but on facial expressions and gestures that would complete the comedic sketches without wasting a beat.

A lot of the film’s funnier bits rely on visual precision. In one scene, Frankenstein (Kevin James) is advising Dracula regarding his problem with his grandson. Dracula decides to go to the bathroom, leaving Frankenstein alone to test Dracula’s wardrobe. A wardrobe malfunction happens, resulting in Dracula and a half-naked Frankenstein awkwardly alone in the bedroom.

It is a hilarious scene, one that wouldn’t have worked if Tartakovsky did not have the sense and intuition to animate the characters to enunciate their gawky mannerisms.

In a fight scene near the end of the film, Tartakovsky stays away from the razzle-dazzle of the action sequences that are typical of CGI 3D cartoons, where depth and fluidity are abused to create an illusion of exquisite craftsmanship. What he does is to direct the action sequence as if it were an episode of his Powerpuff Girls series, with heroes and adversaries pummeling each other not to charm with visual splendor but to showcase the comedic possibilities of the preposterous brawl.

Solid entertainment

Hotel Transylvania 2 is an unquestionably funny film. Sandler’s brand of unabashedly corny comedy complements Tartakovsky’s ingenious animation style. Sure, the story tends to be overbearing with its sometimes confused message about tolerance and acceptance, given that the film spends a lot of time showing Dracula forcing his grandson to become a monster only to have an all too happy ending where everybody gets what they want. 

However, given such a light-hearted treatment, there seems to be no cause for nitpicking. Hotel Transylvania 2 is pretty solid entertainment, one that actually makes you forget about all the wrong details and slight inconsistencies because you are too busy having a grand time laughing. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios