Hotel Transylvania is a sweet-hearted cartoon comedy in time for Halloween
Hotel Transylvania arrives just in time for Halloween (Picture: Sony Pictures)Little ones who ran wailing from ParaNorman will enjoy this cuddlier Halloween-targeting cartoon. After his wife is slain (bloodlessly, off screen) by pitchfork-waving villagers, Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) builds a monsters-only hotel as a sanctuary to protect his baby daughter from nasty humans.
However, when Mavis (Selena Gomez) turns 118, she yearns to see the outside world. Dad says no but, illogically, cant prevent a 21-year-old human backpacker (Andy Samberg) unwittingly gatecrashing her birthday party like, just gag him and throw him in the dungeon, dude.
The whole hotel dimension is strangely superfluous. It really only exists to add some welcome manic, multi-character mayhem to the otherwise traditional cartoon plot of the controlling dad (Finding Nemo etc) and, presumably, to make sure this doesnt look like a film for girls: research finding that boys dont like watching cartoons with girl heroes, bless them.
Pretty, if uninspired, its saved by occasional one-liners and some cute visual touches, such as a toadstool actually made from toads.
The Munsters-type references to old monster movies will swish way over little heads but this sweet-hearted comedy is still largely aimed at them.
Non-stop, kerrrazy antics will keep the most attention-deficit junior hooked, though adults may wish to check out before the end.
Score: 3/5