HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

year: 2012 voices: Adam Sandler, Adam Samberg: rating: *

What really bothers Dracula is the way he’s imitated. The usual mimic goes something like, “Hello, I’m Count Dracula” followed by the inevitable (drawn out in the Bela Lugosi accent) “blah, blah, blah.” Each of those words describe the film, which doesn’t have a plot but more of a situation: Dracula’s daughter Mavis is of-age and desires going amongst the humans.

Drac's an overprotective dad and wants her to stay at home: in a giant mansion he’s turned into a plush hotel for all the monsters of the world to relax. A human named Jonathan, in the form of a twenty-something hippie lughead, happens into the Hotel... which is really just a sprawling lobby with so many monsters mashed together not one of them stands out as funny or important.

Mavis and Jonathan hit it off but Dracula gets to him first – and frantically masquerades the kid into monster form so his daughter won’t know the difference. That about sums up this claustrophobic mess, but with a title like HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA it shouldn’t be surprising most of the film takes place there. The only problem is: there’s little more than that over-saturated lobby that gets really dull quick.

Sandler, who’s needed a hit for years, doesn’t suck in doing Drac’s voice, but Adam Samberg’s Jonathan sounds like a deliberate imitation of an airhead college jerk you wouldn’t want to spend a minute with, much less ninety – which feels more like an eternity.

So if you want to have a real monster shindig, rent the Rankin/Bass stop-motion classic MAD MONSTER PARTY where the ghoulish inhabitants all have purpose.

MAD MONSTER PARTY (1967) is the better place to spend your time