Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation - A Hilarious Animated Farce
A lighthearted animated comedy about Dracula and his family and friends’ adventures on an ocean cruise.
Dracula’s daughter plans a summer vacation for her family and friends. She books a luxurious ocean cruise liner specially equipped for monster vacationers. Mavis is unaware that the cruise is a trap for Dracula, devised by Ericka Van Helsing, the great-granddaughter of the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing. To gain the monsters’ trust, Ericka poses as the ship’s captain and does everything to please the passengers. Dracula is so impressed by his new acquaintance that he falls in love with her at first sight and begins to woo her. Mavis is annoyed by this and decides to prove that Ericka is unworthy of her father.
Inspiration Behind the Film
When Genndy Tartakovsky was writing the script, he was inspired by his own family cruise trip.
After director Genndy Tartakovsky released the second installment of the blockbuster “Hotel Transylvania” in 2015, he wanted to switch to other projects and pass the series on to a new director. However, none of his original feature-length projects materialized, and our former compatriot (Tartakovsky was born in Moscow and emigrated to America at the age of seven) returned to Sony Pictures Animation to continue the animated saga about Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman, and other classic movie monsters.
What to Expect
If you and your children enjoyed the previous “Hotel Transylvania” movies, then “Summer Vacation” will likely be to your taste as well. The plot of the movie is quite simple (“All-conquering love brings sworn enemies together”), but “Hotel Transylvania” has never been known for its original storylines. The secret to its success is the combination of vibrant visuals, good-natured storytelling, energetic silliness, and an abundance of visual gags. Few people can make audiences laugh with a character’s walk or a single gesture as well as Tartakovsky can, and the best moments of “Summer Vacation” are wordless.
Of course, there are funny lines in the movie as well. However, Tartakovsky, who took on the task of writing the script for “Hotel Transylvania” for the first time, did not excel in coming up with them. The movie doesn’t shine with verbal wit, but the graphic inventions and jokes make up for this shortcoming. However, the result is a one-sided film that cannot compete on equal terms with outstanding animated films like the masterpieces of Pixar and Walt Disney.
Formally, “Summer Vacation” can be called a story of the confrontation between a vampire and vampire hunters, but the fighting only comes to a head in the climax, and it is depicted as unserious as possible – ridiculous, parodic, and without much threat to the characters. So, for the most part, “Summer Vacation” is not a variation on “Van Helsing” and similar vampire action movies, but a resort farce about antics at sea and on land, as well as the beginning of a romance and about family love and jealousy.
It would seem that this makes the film addressed more to adults than to children, but “Summer Vacation” does not delve into psychological depths, and it has more than enough mischievous clowning to appeal to kids. In addition, the parent-child relationships between Mavis and Dracula and between Ericka and her still-living great-grandfather play almost as big a role in the movie as the romance of the main characters. So, the kids will understand the plot, and it will not seem far from their own problems. They may even take something away from it, although “Summer Vacation” is drawn not as a didactic, but as a purely entertaining film.
Visuals and Animation
Sony Pictures Animation is one of the world’s leading computer animation studios, and from a technical point of view, “Summer Vacation” looks great. Not “the best of all,” but with the beauty, scope, and attention to detail that distinguish the creations of true Hollywood masters. Don’t think that Tartakovsky limited the action to the ship – the liner makes stops, so the picture turned out to be diverse. The characters relax on the beach, go scuba diving, and even visit Atlantis, which in the movie appears as a mixture of Las Vegas with ancient ruins waiting for Indiana Jones. Well, or Count Dracula, who also knows how to look for treasures. How many talents he has!