Not That Funny...

Rating: 3/10 (29 July 2013)

This movies is funny, but not that funny. Obviously that is an extremely opinionated assertion, but it's my opinion. There just wasn't enough humor to cover up the obvious annoying clichés and the painful lack of likable characters.
This movie does absolutely nothing to draw you in and make you care at all about what happens to these creatures. The premise is great - a hotel where all the terrors of the past and present congregate? How could such an interesting idea be messed up? Like this.
For one thing, there were no surprises. Without giving too much away, I can say that it was obvious from the beginning what was going to happen to each one-dimensional character, and even more irritating was that it all happened using the same formula as every other stupid teen angst movie ever made. None of the characters interested me. None were developed enough.
Were there funny moments? Yes, and of course they managed to fit in the tiny, harmless yet funny reference to the certain famous/infamous series regarding sparkly fanged creatures, and that was all good and satisfying. Still, there were few rib-crackers... nothing that made you fall out of your seat giggling.
Okay, I'm only just getting to my real problem with this film - it's obvious political and social messages. Bottom line, let your kids go, they should be given room to breathe, etc. Whether you agree with that message or not, we see it so sickeningly often in film these days, it's become a kind of disgusting platitude. Originality? Anyone? And also, they do next to nothing to veil the obvious metaphor of monsters living in hiding (literally in closets, for some of them) misunderstood by the rest of the world. I make so social or political statements here when I say that it was way, way too obvious. And it makes the movie, for me, far more dramatic than it needs to be. Obviously, no one is going to take such a silly animated movie seriously, so why try to stuff dramatic messages in there? And why is it that a kid's movie is all of a sudden the place to be stuffing these political messages? In short, there was nothing about this movie that made me think, "Heh, that's interesting. I like that." I'd seen it all before. If it had cracked me up, perhaps I could have given it a pass. But it just wasn't that funny.