HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3- BLEH BLOOH BLAH

I have never been a big fan of the Transylvania Franchise and that’s mainly because of Adam Sandler. I don’t like him much and I find his goofy accents excruciatingly annoying and every time Dracula opens his mouth to speak, I want to punch that pasty face, all because of Adam Sandler.

Dracula and his family and friends are otherwise quite lovable and funny (to some extent) but then Sandler just goes and ruins it all with that atrocious twang.

I watched the first two instalments on TV but decided to watch this in the theatre for Skip. (For those who are confused as to who Skip is or haven’t read our earlier posts – Skip is my grandmother’s son-in-law’s grandchild). I had seen the trailers on the large screen and this instalment looked interesting. Also Skip likes the trailer soundtrack “Cake by the Ocean”.

PLOT: Dracula (Adam Sandler!) and his daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez) are overworked and in desperate need of a vacation. Also, Dracula is lonely and needs to find someone to date (preferably someone without too many eyes or tentacles). Mavis surprises her father by booking a vacation on a cruise ship for their family and friends. The captain of the ship is Ericka (Kathryn Hahn), a human who has this special vacation planned just for monsters.

Dracula is smitten with Ericka and also literally tongue tied (aaargh, more of the goofy accent). But Ericka has a secret and all is not as it appears.

NOT A SPOLIER (this is revealed in the trailers too) – Erika is the great grand daughter of Abraham Van Helsing (Jim Gaffidan), who comes from a family of monster hunters and has been on a quest to kill Dracula since a long, long time. Having failed to do so on numerous attempts, his great grand-daughter Erika has now taken it upon herself to vanquish all monsters especially Dracula, by taking them to the lost city of Atlantis where lies hidden a weapon that can finally kill all the monsters.

Meanwhile, Mavis is not too pleased with the idea of her father dating somebody and she has her own suspicions about Ericka.

Will Mavis succeed in revealing the truth behind Ericka’s flamboyant monster vacation? Will Ericka and her grandfather succeed in destroying all monsters? Or will Dracula find true love at last?

Sadly, like its predecessors, this instalment too fails to tug at one’s heartstrings.

The problem (of course, besides Adam Sandler!) is the unremarkable scriptwriting and weak storyline.  To cut a long story short, the movie is just plain silly. Skip laughed out loud at some scenes that involved monsters jiggling their bodies and passing wind. I must admit I may have laughed out loud too but it is for the sheer silliness of certain scenes especially the final scene that involves a battle of the DJs- Dracula’s son in law and Grandfather Van Helsing.

The other characters in the film (the werewolves, green Blobby, Mummy, Invisible Man, Frankenstein’s monster) are all cute but that’s all they are.  There’s no novelty in their presence. The only new “monster” introduced was ‘Tinkles’, the family pet.

Sequels very rarely match up to their predecessors but in this case, it’s not like they had a tough task at hand.

Skip wasn’t particularly pleased about the fact that they didn’t play “Cake by the Ocean” in the movie. I liked the songs played in the film, even the corny ones played at the end J

For those who missed watching this movie last weekend, worry not if it’s still not running the next weekend...