[yasr_overall_rating]
While on a vacation with his family, Count Dracula makes a romantic connection.
While Adam Sandler hasn’t done too well in recent years, even with his attempts at more serious fare like “The Meyerowitz Stories,” “The Cobbler,” and “Men, Women & Children,” he seems to have a young built-in audience when it comes to the “Hotel Transylvania” movies. And who could blame them, his personification of the Prince of Darkness is played strictly for laughs and never once comes across as scary. The tone in all three films is light-hearted and whimsical and actually makes for enjoyable viewing and, at times, offers some laugh-out-loud moments.
In this third outing, Drac continues to run his Hotel Transylvania along with his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her husband Johnny (Andy Samberg). Working non-stop seems to take its toll on Drac so Mavis decides to book a surprise cruise for her dad and all of his friends, including his father Vlad (Mel Brooks), Frank(enstein) (Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Wayne (Steve Buscemi) and his wife Wanda (Molly Shannon) and many more. Drac doesn’t realize how stressed out he really is until he steps foot onto the cruise ship but he is then immediately smitten with Ericka (Kathryn Hahn), the ship’s captain. He can’t take his eyes off her and initially, while she expresses interest in him too, Mavis suspects she is not who she appears to be. It soon comes to light that she is actually the great-granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan), the legendary vampire hunter who has killed many vampires in his lifetime but has failed, continuously, to stake Dracula. Believing Dracula to be a bloodsucking creature of the night, she finds it hard to resist his chivalrous ways once they come face to face but when she sees how good a father he is with Mavis, her expectations are thrown out the window.
Still believing Dracula to be bad, she assists her great-grandfather Abraham in resurrecting a giant monster from the deep, one who will not only destroy Dracula and his family but all of his monster friends too. When things go awry, and Ericka is almost killed by the creature, she is saved by Dracula, repeatedly, and then realizes he is nothing like the stories she was told growing up. When her great-grandfather Abraham is almost killed by the sea creature but saved by Dracula, he too realizes that after all these years, he is not the bad person history made him out to be. After saving the day, everyone heads back to Hotel Transylvania where Drac proposes to Ericka and they live happily ever after.
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” offers a fun alternative for the kids who want to escape the plethora of superhero movies and over-the-top action films that have flooded theaters this summer. The animation is superb and the characters are charming and appealing. Even the big sea monster that threatens to wipe out Drac and his family and friends, once his spell is broken by Johnny and his amazing DJ skills, joins in the music and dances along with everyone, nobody is left out. I’m sure this movie will make its money back and while I’m not too keen on film franchises that keep going and going, in this instance, each movie is harmless fun and as long as it keeps the kids entertained, and some of us adults too, I can’t complain.
In theaters Friday, July 13th
