Hotel Transylvania

Given the name of the director, the creative talent involved (the storyboards were done by the brilliant Rebeca Sugar) and the production company, Hotel Transylvania is a major disappointment. It’s just a run-of-the-mill animated movie for kids made according to the most primitive template, where personality is lacking and mediocrity is invoked in the interest of playing it safe. Making a mish-mash of pop culture allusions and showing the supposedly civilian faces of iconic fictional characters might have still been captivating eleven years ago in Shrek (though this is a technique known from mainstream family movies dating as far back as the 1980s), but not so much today, when cultural recycling is one of the hackneyed and, thanks to the broad availability of information, actually the simplest and most careless principles of pop culture. At one time – granted, it was a few year ago already – Sony Pictures Animation was considered to be the new hope in the field of animated movies for the whole family, as it gave space to imaginative creative and technical visions. Now, however, it’s quite tempting to make the generalisation that it’s just milking franchises that have caught on and trying to come up with new ones, but they take the form of cash cows that have no significant creative ambition and just throw all sorts of attractions at viewers willy-nilly with the hope that something sticks. In the context of the studio’s current output, Hotel Transylvania is a solid but unremarkable standard movie whose strength lies in its precisely conceived images, but it remains the least distinctive entry in Tartakovsky’s filmography. (2014-08-09)

Oof! After all those “important” Oscar dramas, it’s so nice to put on a happy and undemanding animated flick with monsters. Thumbs up and I’m not ashamed to say it. During the first ten minutes I was fortunately able to overcome the feeling of “this looks awful” (in today’s competition in animated films, Hotel Transylvania is not among the top aesthetically) and switch into a relax mode. A very nice and refreshing break. The skeleton of a story is unoriginal, but I don’t watch animation looking for screenwriting innovation. The important thing is that it’s brisk and doesn’t last three hours. (2013-01-12)

I'm already getting bored with these animations, but Sandler-esque Hotel Transylvania has impressed me in every way. I can imagine more charming animation and a more original story, but who cares when everything is working as it should, it's entertaining, rarely boring, and the jokes are delivered with a sense of humor and exceptional precision... 9/10 (2016-04-13)

While waiting for Christmas, I watched Hotel Transylvania and it served as a very good way to pass the time during long moments. I was really on such a positive and joyful wave thanks to the humor that dominates this animated movie from start to finish. The characters are very refreshing, and I also like their visual diversity. A very pleasant fairy tale. (2014-12-28)

A purely average film. The filmmakers obviously intended a cannonade of jokes, but not all of their attempts at humor succeeded, and they did not avoid perhaps the greatest vice of contemporary (especially American) comedy - the painfully convoluted combination of humor with a moralizing message. Yes, yes, I really did laugh here and there, but it was often just so, um, bloodless.___P.S. In the Czech dubbing, the (ware)wolf Wayne is called Helmut and has a German accent. Anyone have any idea why? (2015-04-19)