Hotel Transylvania

Dominated by Adam Sandler's D-minus Bela Lugosi impression, the 3-D animated feature "Hotel Transylvania" illustrates the difference between engaging a young movie audience and agitating it, with snark and noise and everything but the funny.

Finally, a comical yet spooky story for children and adults alike comes to theaters. “Hotel Transylvania” creates a fresh perspective on the well-known monsters from everyone’s past. While the audience will find themselves chuckling out loud, they...

Famous monsters who want to get away from pesky (and terrifying) humans book their holidays at the title luxury resort in the neutered and hectic 3-D animated comedy Hotel Transylvania.

Among the many running gags in the animated monster mash "Hotel Transylvania" is one in which its cartoony Count Dracula repeatedly becomes irritated whenever others attempt to imitate him. "I do not," he insists, "say 'blah-blahblah-blah!' "

From top to bottom, Hotel Transylvania feels like a rush job. The script never moves beyond its concept—one with some potential—of gathering as many monsters from literature, movies, and legend together in one space.

That isn't meant rudely, just a practical observation after enjoying his voice-only turn in the animated comedy Hotel Transylvania. Toss in the laughs Sandler earned voicing a monkey in Zookeeper and bad memories of the Zohans, Jacks and Jills he...

There's a nice, old-school Disneyesque moment in Hotel Transylvania, a merrily madcap computer-animated monster mashup about a high-end getaway for the likes of Frankenstein, the Mummy, Invisible Man, and lesser-known scary folk and their kin.

Welcome to the “Hotel Transylvania,” where you can check out any time you like, but you will never laugh.

After years of fruitless searching, it would appear that modern science has finally found the right place for Adam Sandler’s crew: children’s cartoons. “Hotel Transylvania,” a congenial toon about a monsters-only resort accidentally discovered by...

Proof positive that the makers of "Hotel Transylvania" did not do their research: Frankenstein's monster is named Frankenstein. It's a small detail, but a crucial one for a film that takes its inspiration from vintage Universal creature features and...

These are the chief questions asked and answered in Hotel Transylvania, hands down the funniest Adam Sandler comedy since … well, I’m tempted to say “ever.” Sandler and his cinematic posse – Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz...

Throwing a bunch of Universal classic monster archetypes into an animated film and then using a generic coming-of-age, father-daughter relationship as the linchpin might've seemed like a good idea on paper, but onscreen Hotel Transylvania is as...

Yet another instance of a decent, potentially thorny premise bogged down in a mess of treacly sentiment and tedious moralizing, Hotel Transylvania attempts to encroach on Pixar territory with its high concept and foregrounding of family dynamics...

The monster-humanization lobby has been active in Hollywood for some time now. (Why else would Mel Gibson still be getting work?) The latest pro-beastie salvo is “Hotel Transylvania,” a serviceable animated movie about a soft-hearted Dracula...

Hotel Transylvania is, following ParaNorman, the second 3D animated horror-comedy to come out in as many months, although it differs quite substantially in that it has no real interest in the horror genre outside of borrowing caricatured versions...

Drained by teen franchises and endless reincarnations, the once-mighty night-stalker has become the stuff of kiddie cartoons -- the kind, doting daddy at the heart of Hotel Transylvania.

Hotel Transylvania In his role as Dracula, Sandler gives his best performance in years, perhaps because we can't see him. But this lively animated romp is packed with transgressive gags that kids will love. And it doesn't talk down to adults either...

I hope you are sitting down, because something truly shocking is about to happen. I am going to moderately praise a film which prominently features Sandler. Just his voice, mind, but the very fact that he is involved with a film which isn’t the...

Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez) is the daughter of Dracula (Adam Sandler) and she suffers from Little Mermaid Syndrome. She just turned 118 -- legal in vampire years --and wants out of the stifling cocoon of the world she knows, a for-monsters-only...

Dracula (the voice of Adam Sandler), who operates a resort for monsters and their families away from the real world, becomes overprotective when human boy Jonathan (Andy Samberg) stumbles upon the hotel and falls for the Count's daughter Mavis...

Well over a hundred years ago, Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) built a huge castle for his only daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez), to keep her safe from humans (read: isolated from the rest of the world). By creating a hotel where all monsters could come...

In director Genndy Tartakovsky’s movie, monsters live and breathe in the human world, only they’ve been pushed back into the shadows and left to fear for their lives rather than terrorising their neighbours. So perhaps the most fearsome character...

Dracula (voice by Adam Sandler) tries to protect his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) from the murderous human race by sheltering her in his secluded hotel for vacationing monsters. Then, one day, a hiker (Andy Samberg) wanders into the lobby...

Monsters as heroes is a pretty popular theme in pop culture. Vampires are more likely to be dreamy lovers than smelly undead bloodsuckers these days. And long before “Twilight” and its ilk, Tim Burton made the ghoulish seem normal with “The Nightmare...

At first I wasn't on board. Granted, Genndy created three of my most beloved childhood cartoon, but with the bad streek of films Sandler had been dishing out ans the fact that you they had a few questionable cast choices, it grew on me and I gave it a...

I know it's a little early in the season, but if you're ready for a Halloween-themed flick that's going to be lot of fun for the whole family, have I got a cartoon for you. More romantic and funny than spooky and spine-tingling...

Rule of thumb: A good Adam Sandler movie means that Sandler has opted to step away from the assembly line and work with a noteworthy director. This year, it's Genndy Tartakovsky of "Samurai Jack" and "Dexter's Laboratory" fame making his feature debut...

Back in 1895, Count Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) welcomed a beloved baby girl. Skip forward 118 years and now-teenage vampire Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez) yearns to escape from her over-protective father’s cavernous castle, which is exclusively...

This Genny Tartakovsky directed animated feature was released in the States earlier to coincide with Halloween, and rightly so – because this is a movie about your favourite classic monsters. Here in Singapore, the local distributor has decided to...

Genndy Tartakovsky’s name might not be immediately familiar, but for anyone who has tuned into the Cartoon Network in the last decade or so, the guy’s a vital presence, producing such staples such as Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack.

The feature debut of Genndy Tartakovsky - the mad scientist behind Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack - this zany monster mash could’ve been something special.

Speaking of idiots, Sandler pours an infuriating accent on so thick, and with such little Lugosi authority, that it sounds more Jewish than Transylvanian. And no matter how many times Nosferajew bares his fangs, he can't save this film from its ironic...

The film does lose steam in its final twenty minutes or so, when it hurtles towards its predictable, feel-good ending, but there's one 'Twilight' joke so well-timed, you can't help but leave smiling.

While he still has to observe all the annoying rules that affect his species - avoiding direct sunlight, garlic and so on - the Count is very much his own man these days.