‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ is better than the original

Mind you, this is a low hurdle to clear. For example, most of the jokes are just rehashes from the first film. The sequel isn’t great or anything – it’s not particularly good or anything – but it is an improvement. Maybe they’ll come up with something worth getting excited about.

I think Hotel Transylvania 2 is much more lovely than the first movie, in fact-having made a squillion dollars with the tale of Dracula’s luxury hotel for monsters and the human backpacker who turns up there, the studio seems to have loosened the purse strings and given Tartakovsky’s team of animators more resources this time around.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 stars Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and David Spade. Using a montage of scenes, the story quickly covers about five years or so, as Mavis and Johnny have a son, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff).

The newlyweds live with her pops in Drac’s castle/hotel, and once Drac’s adored “poisonberry” is pregnant, he goes into overdrive, worrying whether he will have a vampire grandson or,
ghouls forbid, a human.

So as busy and silly as “Hotel Transylvania 2” is, it’s all about unhealthy possessiveness.

So he arranges for Jonathan and Mavis to take a trip together while he babysits Dennis. “Trust me, I want to, but I do feel like that’s always been the best thing for me, is turning the other cheek”.

The film’s plot centers on this question of “Is he or isn’t he?”, with Dracula doing everything he can to ensure that his vampiric bloodline continues.

Lucky for Drac, he has an ally in Johnny who would sooner lose his beloved backpack (an object he reserves a place at the dinner table) then move back to the sunny Californian suburb where he grew up. When Dracula orders him to kill and eat an adorable deer in the woods, Wayne’s hesitation and confusion is amusing.

Selena Gomez knows she would have an incredibly “heavy conscience” if she retaliated to her haters. On top of his uninvited father showing up, the count is anxious that his grandson is going to a mere human instead of a real monster since his fangs have not dropped. Of course, the scheme fails, enrages the protective Mavis and sets up her not-a-threat-it’s-a-promise to leave Transylvania with her family for California permanently.

The animation is done in director Genndy Tartakovsky’s unmistakable style (as seen in the series “Samurai Jack” and “Dexter’s Laboratory“), and the film was clearly a labor of love and family affair for cowriter Sandler, whose daughter Sadie voices the ferociously cute werewolf pup Winnie.

Okay, fine, I laughed a couple of times, too. HIs audience will probably be happy with another one of these. The script is written smartly this time by Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler, and it blends some amusing slapstick jokes “with some equally smart references for horror film fan aficionados”.