The 2012 Sony animated movie, Hotel Transylvania, may have been generally disliked by critics, but was a film that offered up a lot more than what it was paraded as. It was beautifully animated from both a visual and a movement standpoint, showcased some truly fantastic slapstick, mixed some genuinely funny moments with some genuine sweet moments to result in a strangely well-rounded experience, and it show the world that Adam Sandler (when he wants to) is capable of putting in a good performance that can make you smile and even get a little emotional. It’s got its fair share of flaws and certainly isn’t amazing, but the backlash the film got seems to be tied more to who was involved in the making of the movie rather than the film itself. Actors like Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and David Spade have been attached to several flops throughout their careers and can often be viewed by critics as actively unlikeable and even box office poison in specific events, definitely painting a picture to how they view a lot of their films, regardless of actual quality. This would go to explain why when the sequel came out in 2015 with mostly the same amount of quality, it somehow did only slightly better critically. After his daughter Mavis (voiced again by Selena Gomez) marries her human boyfriend, Jonathan (voiced again by Andy Samberg) and eventually gets pregnant, Dracula (voiced again by Adam Sandler) excitedly waits for his new grandson, Dennis (voiced by Asher Blinkoff) to become a vampire, but finds that he isn’t showing any signs of becoming one, slowly starting to fear that his human genes may have erased the vampire component entirely. With Mavis wanting to move Dennis away to live with humans, Dracula decides to try once more to bring Dennis’ monster side out in the hopes that’ll prevent his daughter living permanently this time around. He plans to achieve this by taking Dennis on a road trip with all of his friends, including Frankenstein (voiced again by Kevin James), the Wolfman (voiced again by Steve Buscemi), the Mummy (voiced by Keegan Michael Key) and the Invisible Man (voiced again by David Spade), to show Dennis what it means to be a true monster, which proves a little hard as they are all pretty rusty and no longer viewed as dangerous by the general public. With Mavis only away to visit the in-laws for a limited time, the race is on to see if Dennis even is a monster, which may also have to be found out before Dracula’s human-hating father, Vlad (voiced by Mel Brooks) comes to visit. While the critical responses for this movie are all over the place, the bottom line is that most people don’t feel like it’s that drastically different from the first. As a whole, this sequel does feel like more of the same this time around, with only slight dips and rises in quality in various departments, which either way, results in a charming fun time.

One of the main things that the first movie nailed was this sense of creativity and overwhelming sense of charm. The characters were all likeable and wonderfully designed, the world they created was fun and took advantage of its premise, the emotional moments may seem like they have a high road to climb due to the high amounts of wacky jokes that can border on childish at times, but the genuine heart attached usually makes them hit bullseye. This sequel follows through with that by still having the same likeable energy, fun characters, fantastic animation, and a fair amount of heart involved in a plot that meshes well with both sides of the film’s tonal spectrum. Trying to test to see if Dracula’s half vampire half human grandson is really a monster, allows for a lot of comedic potential through the various monster testing rituals and the ways in which they go wrong, but the familial connections and bonds on display throughout even their disagreements, also allows for the same level of likability as the first, and maybe even better in moments. The movie’s narrative is arguably more interesting than the first as while the first film did have great comedy, characters and emotion, it did rely heavily on predictable cliches and forced plot lines, which this film doesn’t really do. It allows the characters to be less predictable, it leaves the humor more open to be unexpected and make further usage of its idea and modern qualities (a specific scene involving an edited YouTube video is surprisingly hilarious), and it just allows the light-hearted energy to take over and warm its way into people’s hearts. Its surprisingly well paced and even manages to create a story that doesn’t rely on something like a forced bad guy or something of the like (for the most part), it’s a relatively low-stakes and lighter movie, yet doesn’t suffer from that. While for a majority of the movie, it seems pretty spot on in terms of what it’s trying to get across, the final act is where things start to fall apart. It rushes to a pretty predictable climax with not as effective slapstick, it introduces a new conflict and threat that feels a little forced, the characters don’t really learn anything outside of just saying the message to an overly obvious point, and the moral itself which originally seemed pretty solid about not forcing something onto your children, becomes pretty backwards and even a little counteractive in regard to how the story plays out. So, in many ways, it takes steps forward and backwards in terms of its storytelling.

While the characters were already pretty funny in the first film, this one added more time to spend with them as well as more to add to the cast, and therefore makes the ensemble more effective. For the most part, most of the new characters added are pretty good and most of the returning cast are given more screen time to better show-off their strong components. Dracula and the main group of monsters are given far more of an enjoyable connection as opposed to the first one where they just kinda talked about being best friends, so it’s nice seeing that connection expanded upon and brought to its full comedic potential. Since they are constantly together throughout the movie, it allows for a lot more interactions between each other and even though these comedians can be a little hit-and-miss when put in bad projects, this film knows how to use them well. The relationship between Dracula and his grandson is also a nice new addition that is open to its fair share of cute moments, which can also be said for the relationship between Dracula and Mavis, these characters feel like they shouldn’t be able to illicit such a cutesy loving family unit, but their ability to show their love through gruesome, scary things, is lovably macabre (very much like The Addams Family in that regard). Most of the characters that don’t need much screen time are shortened down to minor roles (especially Johnny who can very easily get annoying if put on screen for too long), even small cameos can still result in some good laughs (mainly Jon Lovitz as a musically blunt Phantom of the Opera), and each main player still contribute when they need to, so it all works out. Again, the only issues come from the final act where the movie tries to insert a last-minute villain in a vampire bat servant named Bela (voiced by Rob Riggle), who doesn’t have any set-up or purpose outside of just needing one for the climax. Vlad as a character is also a weird and pointless addition, and even though he isn’t terrible by any means, it feels pretty out of nowhere and not properly set up to the point where it feels effective.

The animation is still fantastic and allows for some great fast-paced humor that really works with director Genndy Tartakovsky’s style; extravagant and wild, yet detailed and impactful. It’s the zaniness of the humor and the bizarre-ness of the situation that usually allows the humor to be unexpected and entertaining. It usually takes a joke that people would normally expect and takes it to the next level and it’s one of the few times where a modern aesthetic is actually beneficial for a scenario like this. Because its calling back to classical monsters and classical horror stories, the modern element placed on these old-fashioned characters allows it to work on a whole new level, and thankfully because of the speed of the humor, if a joke fails, it can be immediately followed up by another one. While the jokes and overall scripting by both Sandler and his frequent collaborator, Robert Smigel, is incredibly quick and in-your-face, it doesn’t suck away any of the emotional moments as they still feel effective enough because of the previously mentioned heart, It’s true that sometimes a moment can shove a painfully forced pop-song into the movie for no reason whatsoever and every once and a awhile, a modern joke will hit and fall flat (there are only so many times you reach for a predictably gimmicky joke before one eventually doesn’t land), but not nearly as much as they did in the first movie.

Hotel Transylvania 2 got about as much negative attention as the first Hotel Transylvania did, and that feels largely unfair. These movies aren’t perfect and are home to their fair share of problems and issues (if anything, the third film feels like the franchise has finally given up), but these two have offered up some amazing animation, some great fast-paced humor, some likeable characters, and utilization of a great concept. The amount of hatred being spewed onto them feels like a bleed-over from critics who have systematically prepared themselves to hate everything some of these actors are involved in, and that just doesn’t seem right. This sequel feels like it’s both better and worse than the first as the execution of the message and final act are really what drags it down, while this one has a better handling of its story, characters and humor for the rest of the length against the first film. Both are still worth watching and both are more than what people think they are worth. While Adam Sandler as Dracula should sound pretty unbearable, there’s actually a lot of worth to check out in this franchise (maybe minus the third).

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