Film Review: Hotel Transylvania 3 Teaches Love Through Difference
Synopsis: they embark on a vacation on a luxury monster cruise ship so Drac can take a summer vacation from providing everyone else’s vacation at the hotel. It’s smooth sailing for Drac’s Pack as the monsters indulge in all of the shipboard fun the cruise has to offer, from monster volleyball to exotic excursions, and catching up on their moon tans. But the dream vacation turns into a nightmare when Mavis realizes Drac has fallen for the mysterious captain of the ship, Ericka, who hides a dangerous secret that could destroy all of monsterkind.
For my Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (HT3) review, I will say this. I LOVE CARTOONS! I proudly watch Adventure Time and Amazing World of Gumball (Don’t Judge Me!). That being said there are certain cartoons/ animated films that can draw in young adults and adults with hidden, “grown-up” jokes and can appeal to the universal inner child. Hotel Transylvania 3 is not one of them; this film is strictly for children to laugh, stare in wonder at the animations on screen, and eat up Adam Sandler’s puns.
Frankly, there is nothing wrong with Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation being a straight-up child’s movie because that is its target audience. Seeing the film with a room full of kids, I heard their giggles loud and clear, while their parents ate the popcorn and waited. Why? Because that is what parents do; we watch our kids have joy and eat our feelings. This being said, HT3 did draw me into its love story and garnered a few cute chuckles at watching Dracula “zing”/ fall in love with Ericka (Kathryn Han).
Forbidden love always manages to play into children’s movies, which is something I realized through the Hotel Transylvania series. In being based on the dynamics of monsters and humans, this series has thrived on redefining what is “alien” for a new generation. As Ericka and Dracula fight, doubt, and rejoice in their supernatural connection, I was happy that HT3 was reinforcing to kids that love has no aesthetic or superficial boundaries. It is a pure, spiritual connection, which could be seen as characters like Andy Samberg’s continuously positive and hilarious Johnny interact with the always crazy monster crew like, Selena Gomez’s Mavis, David Spade’s Griffin, Kevin James’ Frank, and Keegan-Michael Key’s Murray.
Maybe, it is because I am older that I pick up how the bar has been raised for animation films to not only be gloriously vivid but also to send a moral message. Back in the day, Disney films’ set goal was to make sure that the princess woke up from her coma in time to land the prince. Yet, those days seem as foreign as a VHS system. Thus, HT3 drives in that difference does not need to equate emotional distance, which I want future generations to learn more than any other previous one. Therefore, parents may roll their eyes at that Gremlin Airlines scene while their kids brazenly laugh, or they may, secretly, check their emails as three witches flirt with Vlad (Mel Brooks) to their kids’ glee, but they will be happy to know their kids are learning to love better. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation comes out Friday July 13.
