Hotel Transylvania, Two!
Tales from Transylvania, Two!
Mya
On November 1st, I went to do see Hotel Transylvania 2 in honor of the Halloween Spirit. Overall it was a very good movie. A few down points, but I believe it was good for sequel standards. Almost the entire main cast returns to reprise their old roles. One exception being CeeLo Green who, in the first instalment voiced Murray the Mummy. Murray instead was voiced by Keegan-Michael Key. Like the previous film the cast is full of comedians that are able to make the film a bit silly and laughable for everyone.
In Hotel Transylvania 2, we return to the lives of Count Dracula's daughter Mavis, and Jonathan. The film opens with Mavis and Jonathan's wedding, sometime after the first film. A year later it is discovered that Mavis is now pregnant. After about five years we approach the fifth birthday of Dracula's new grandson Dennis, or as Dracula called him Denisovich. Dracula must make Dennis' fangs grow in before his fifth birthday (which is only a week away) or Dennis won’t become a vampire, and Mavis may take Dennis away and move to California, so Dennis can grow up around humans. Plot wise the movie is pretty good, there are a few twists and turns throughout the film keeping it from being too predictable.
It was nice to see almost the entire main cast return. Dennis was adorable and served as the main “awe factor” of the film. You get the chance to see how the monsters and humans get along now due to the changes in the last movie which was pretty interesting. I enjoyed the inclusion of “scream cheese” more than I probably should have, but it was one of my favorite jokes from the first movie. The little gremlin lady also was in the film, albeit later in it. It was nice to see her again with her little “I didn’t do that” line. Seeing Mavis do her thing out in the human world was also a blast. The ending to the movie was also really amazing to see, but I can’t say much as it would spoil the movie for those who want to watch it. I also really enjoyed the moral of the movie.
The moral of the movie, like the last one, was to show kids (and some teens and adults who need to learn this too) that you should accept people and not judge them by what they are. Sometime near the end of the film some of Jonathan’s relatives come to the hotel to celebrate Dennis’ fifth birthday. You can see some of Dennis’ cousins making fun of and bullying him. After a certain development (that I’m not going to describe because of potential spoilers) the bullies realize that they were wrong to bully their cousin, and should accept him for who he is. Jonathan’s parents also act in a similar way. Since Dennis was born, they have been pushing Mavis and Jonathan to move back to where they live so Dennis could grow up around humans. The thing that got me there was how they kept using the word “normal” like Dennis wasn’t normal and having him grow up with little to no monster influence would make him normal. They basically don’t want Dennis to even be proud of the fact he is part monster. Dennis even starts to show signs of this later on in the film. Even his own Grandparents didn’t appreciate Dennis for who he is, and that includes Drac. He has a hard time with the fact that his grandson might not become a vampire. Later he learns to accept him as who he is just like everyone else.
The characters were okay. Many of them haven’t changed from the first film. Most that did change did so very little and in the end of the movie. The main exception to this was Dennis, who experienced the most character growth over all. It was interesting to see how the child reacted to different things since he grew up with both monster and human influences.
The movie also had to resort to potty humor at some points. I understand that it’s a kid movie but kids can laugh at other things that don’t need to mention bathroom subjects.
Over all this was a great movie. It has a fantastic moral, a recurring cast of voice actors, and excellent call backs to the first movie that weren’t over done like in many sequels. It is a great movie for a sequel.However I don’t think it would’ve done so well if it were a standalone film. Overall I think going by sequel standards I’d rate the film 4 slices of scream cheese cake out of five. Going by regular standards I’d rate it 2.5 wolf pups out of five.
