Monster Mash is a Graveyard Smash

Rating: 8/10 (1 November 2012)

Hotel Transylvania was surprising good. Adam Sandler plays Dracula, the over bearing father trying to protect his adventurous world traveler dreamer daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) from anything human, while at the same time tries to keep his hotel business running. Adam Sandler's role as the father figure, is a great new look into the actor's skills unchecked since Punch Drunk Love and Click, it's nice to see him playing something else than an annoying stupid voices, immature characters in movies aimed at teens and men who never grew up. I just glad he didn't play the "nails scraping on a blackboard" cringe-inducing way man-child. He is put to the test to try to protect his daughter Mavis when an young free-spirit, bag pack hostel, human named Jonathan (Andy Sanberg) walks into the hotel. In fear of losing his hotel business due to the presence of a human being, he has to figure out a way to quickly get him away. Dracula is force to dress up Jonathan as a monster, so he can freely able to get rid of him without his guest knowing. Before Dracula can get rid of him, his daughter and his guests find Jonathan as the life of the party, and very friendly to the point, that Mavis starts to have feelings for him. Jonathan and Mavis sub-plot relationship isn't as remotely as cheesy as Twilight. The movie even has a scene taking a jab at the Twilight movie in it. The movie is a lot of fun. There is a few sprinkling of potty humor, but it's doesn't detracts from an otherwise fun ride. Full of interesting-to-look-at characters and zany, hectic animation, it's a feast for the eyes with enough jokes thrown in for the parents in the audience, especially in Sandberg's character. The guest of the hotel made out of Frankenstein (Kevin James), Wayne the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) and Murray the Mummy (Ceelo Green) are play their roles great and gives something new to each of the old school monsters. The film is directed by Genndy Tartakovsky well known for his work for Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack. The computer animation is Pixar level. From all the animation monster-related movies put out in 2012, this one was worth the money paying. So check in to "Hotel Transylvania" to find Adam Sandler and his pals playing the greatest monsters in movie history.