Threequels can be a dodgy proposition at the best of times, and that is all too horribly true of this utterly soulless and pointless film. The animation is depressingly mediocre and so is the script. The whole thing, with its joyless and incessant parade of sub-Tex Avery quirks, looks as if it has been generated by some sort of automated software: a non-entertainment bot.
The first two Hotel Transylvania films, in 2012 and 2015, were pretty average – Addams Family/Munster knockoffs for the tweenie Halloween market, the idea being that Count Dracula is running a hotel for vacationing monsters, and discovers his teen daughter wants to date a non-monster civilian. Well, evidently they proved sufficiently profitable to justify a third film coming off the dreary production line. This time, Dracula goes on a cruise with his family, and this adorable widower falls in love with the ship’s glamorous captain, who is a descendant of his old enemy, vampire-hunter Van Helsing. She planned to kill him, but might be falling for him.
Calling this film undead would be flattering it. There isn’t a single moment of genuine wit or real fun in the whole thing. It is especially depressing when you consider something like Incredibles 2, a film that may not have the pure glorious inspiration of the noughties’ golden age of animation, but is still a smart, intelligent, beautifully crafted work. I feel something like despair when I think of people wasting time and money on Hotel Transylvania 3. A fourth one doesn’t bear thinking about.
