Movie review 'Hotel Transylvania 2': Once upon a time in Hollywood
The most instrumental and revealing scene exists around 20 minutes into the film
By : anuj malhotra
Update: 2015-11-07 00:54 GMT
Voices of: Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Adam Sandberg, Asher Blinkoff
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Rating: 3 stars
The most instrumental scene in Hotel Transylvania 2 — and revealing too — exists around 20 minutes into the film. Papa Drac, desperate to help his grandson realise his inevitable capabilities as a vampire, assembles a supergroup of cultural, horror icons: the mummy, Frankenstein, the Werewolf, the Hollow Man — and arranges a trip to the middle of a deserted, haunted forest where they can, one at a time, impress upon the young child the full extent of their vaunted, respective capabilities. The intended consequence of this exhibition is to inspire Denis to discover his own, inner monster. Instead, a complete reversal of expectations: they put on a display of miserable, ironic failure — and then make excuses that allow the film to launch into clever, sophisticated self-reflection: old-age, tiredness, casual reluctance, a bad back, general amnesia (“did you actually say growl?” — asks a shocked vampire from the erstwhile werewolf and establishes a revised sobriquet: werewuss). In this, the film lays bare not only its central, intended audience — a child, children, its modus operandi — a trip to the forest, but also, the anxiety of its makers who are tired, overcirculated pop-culture figures who can only be upgraded with qualities that are completely opposite to what they stand for (kindness, care, paternal love, life inside an old-age home).
It isn’t a secret anymore, though, for most Hollywood-produced, blockbuster animation films with children as protagonists are actually about the adults around them getting mature, getting rid of their prejudices, achieving emotional maturity. When Mavis and Jonathan become parents, Papa Drac develops conventional anxieties: lineage, calibre, pride — he is worried whether his grandson (who he calls Danisovic. He makes a pact with Jonathan, who is eager to live on in Transylvania, that the latter take Mavis out for a week-long trip to hometown California while he, alongwith his merry-band of friends, attempt to evoke within Denis feelings worthy of the Dracula’s grandson.
The film emerges ultimately as a modern-day moral-parable about a checklist of virtues: acceptance, self-discovery, family, belonging to one’s roots and so forth. It is still useful, however, for how it is so typical — its study can reveal a template for how most mainstream animation films are made, always in relation to the other films produced by the same industry. The writer is programmer, Lightcube Film Society
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.