Hotel Transylvania 3 Review
I'm just gonna speak for the general audience and just say that we were all clamoring for the greatest animation studio ever (Sony Pictures Animation) to give us a new Hotel Transylvania. Am I right? I SAID AM I RIGHT?
Yes, I did watch this. I don't know why I did, because I didn't even like the last one remotely. But I watched it. Sony is just about the worst studio when comes to animation. I liked the two Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies and the Goosebumps one too (the new one doesn't look that good though). I thought Peter Rabbit and the first Hotel Transylvania were okay. But that's about all I like from that studio. This studio has somehow managed to make 3 awful Smurfs movies, some terrible Open Season movies, and two of the absolute worst, disgusting, most irredeemable films in every way: The Angry Birds Movie and The Emoji Movie. I despise these two films so much that I will not have the argument, "It's just a kid's film" to defend those films. You know what else is a kids' film? The Lego Movie and everything Pixar/Disney has done (quality varies, but all of them are better than those Sony films). So in case you are wondering; yes, there are standards for kids' films and you can't just dismiss something because it is one (see an editorial coming soon). Okay, my Sony rant is done now. Let's talk about Hotel Transylvania 3.
Positives? The animation is good, it retains the style of a very talented animator, Genndy Tartakovsky. He is responsible for two great Cartoon Network shows from the early 2000s: Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. Like those shows, the animation in this film is very lively and never uninteresting. I personally think this entry has the best animation of all three. Easily the greatest strength this franchise has had is the voice cast. It is phenomenal. Not too many animated films have an all around great cast. I can't think of one cast member that didn't contribute in any positive way. The cast actually makes some of the jokes that would normally miss work because of their comedic delivery. Considering that the cast is one of the biggest draws to the movie, it's pretty solid to say that it is the film's biggest strength.
Unfortunately, to fully utilize a great cast, you need great script too. Hotel Transylvania 3 just does not have that. The reason movies like The Lego Movie or a more recent example, Incredibles 2, work so well is because they don't just rely on humor to carry the movie. They apply some drama and some unique ideas to the script and also add a bunch of jokes. So if some of the jokes don't hit, it's no problem, because the story is engaging on both a dramatic and entertaining standpoint. Hotel Transylvania 3 relies entirely on jokes to keep the story going. This would be fine (not amazing) if most of the jokes hit. But most of them are simply not funny. Yes, there are some fairly amusing moments every now and then, but none of those moments are hilarious. I laughed harder at Skyscraper's jokes, and it's not even a comedy. This is a comedy! Yet the highest it reaction can get is a small chuckle. The film basically fails at its essential purpose. By no means is it a terrible movie. Like I said, there are positives and kids will probably like it, but this one just didn't do it for me.
SCORE: 5/10
It's far from the worst I've seen from even this studio, but there's practically nothing about this film that sets it apart from the majority of animated movies that come out nowadays.
Positives? The animation is good, it retains the style of a very talented animator, Genndy Tartakovsky. He is responsible for two great Cartoon Network shows from the early 2000s: Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. Like those shows, the animation in this film is very lively and never uninteresting. I personally think this entry has the best animation of all three. Easily the greatest strength this franchise has had is the voice cast. It is phenomenal. Not too many animated films have an all around great cast. I can't think of one cast member that didn't contribute in any positive way. The cast actually makes some of the jokes that would normally miss work because of their comedic delivery. Considering that the cast is one of the biggest draws to the movie, it's pretty solid to say that it is the film's biggest strength.
Unfortunately, to fully utilize a great cast, you need great script too. Hotel Transylvania 3 just does not have that. The reason movies like The Lego Movie or a more recent example, Incredibles 2, work so well is because they don't just rely on humor to carry the movie. They apply some drama and some unique ideas to the script and also add a bunch of jokes. So if some of the jokes don't hit, it's no problem, because the story is engaging on both a dramatic and entertaining standpoint. Hotel Transylvania 3 relies entirely on jokes to keep the story going. This would be fine (not amazing) if most of the jokes hit. But most of them are simply not funny. Yes, there are some fairly amusing moments every now and then, but none of those moments are hilarious. I laughed harder at Skyscraper's jokes, and it's not even a comedy. This is a comedy! Yet the highest it reaction can get is a small chuckle. The film basically fails at its essential purpose. By no means is it a terrible movie. Like I said, there are positives and kids will probably like it, but this one just didn't do it for me.
SCORE: 5/10
It's far from the worst I've seen from even this studio, but there's practically nothing about this film that sets it apart from the majority of animated movies that come out nowadays.
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