REVIEW: Hotel Transylvania

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA advance review courtesy of Columbia Pictures starring Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg and Selena Gomez. Directed by Gendy Tartakovsky (of Samurai Jack fame)

The movie is a classic tale of finding independence and love and how much a father would go to keep his daughter safe. It's also a good take on how monsters are seen today as opposed to how they were seen centuries ago.

So anyway the film stars Adam Sandler as Dracula. His dracula is a completely different take on the classic vampire. This guy has a more fatherly charm with only some bits and pieces of the old Hammer era Dracula (or the Lugosi version). The cute thing about this new take is that (a) he strongly resembles Adam Sandler complete with the egg-shaped head (b) its based on character designs by director Genndy Tartakovsky.

The movie also features some regulars of Adam Sandler movies. We have Kevin James who plays Frankenstein's Monster aka Franky. There's also David Spade who is the Invisible Man, Steve Buschemi as the Wolfman and even John Lovitz who plays Quasimodo. Oh and new to this posse is Ceelo Greene who plays Murray the Mummy.

But it's really Selena Gomez and Andy Samberg who tries to take the centerstage. They play Mavis and Johnny respectively. It's Mavis' 118th birthday party that gathers all the world's monsters together and it's also the said party that Johnny crashes into. 

The film is funny as heck. There were some great moments for the three main characters and Tartakovsky knows how to go and properly mix teenage stuff with kid stuff (I'd say he's already a master of this with his stuff like Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack and even Star Wars Clone Wars). Teenage matters like coming-of-age, falling in love gets equal perspective focus on this. We get to see Drac's gripes and fears over his only daughter leaving the confines of the Hotel in order to strike out on her own while Mavis shows her side of wanting to see the world and becoming independent.

The film becomes more entertaining due to a couple of other factors one it embraces Hollywood's obssession with monsters then turns it sideways and makes it spin. It's actually a who's who of classic monsters in this one. Even zombies were pretty cute.

Here's a cute tidbit/ factoid - did you know that Adam Sandler's wife Jackie is actually part of the film playing Dracula's wife. She gets a few lines in this and proves that this film is about family made with people who consider themselves family for families. Pretty cool huh?

The film also features a great soundtrack with some of the best artist in the music industry contributing their talents. It's also cool to see some modern tracks integrated into the movie. Some songs that were present in the movie was LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It".

'Hotel Transylvania' is a great film for all ages. Its tackling an important topic for parents and teenagers which is about striking out and flying out in the big world on their own.

VERDICT: 8/10

Special thanks to Columbia Pictures Philippines