Hotel Transylvania 3D

Everyone knows them and most people fear them: Monsters like Vampire Dracula, Werewolves, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Invisible Man or the hunchbacked Quasimodo. It is almost impossible for them to move freely among humans without being chased by them with pitchforks, burned or staked. To protect his own kind, but especially his beloved daughter Mavis (voiced by Josefine Preuß) from the evil humans, Dracula (Rick Kavanian) had the Hotel Transylvania built. In this 5-star resort, inaccessible to normal humans, monsters can finally relax and be who they are. And this weekend they are all guests at Hotel Transylvania to celebrate Mavis' 118th birthday. Everything is perfectly planned, but there's one thing the overprotective Dracula didn't count on: of all things, a human shows up at the hotel for the first time that evening. And then the slightly crazy Jonathan (Elyas M`Barek) falls in love with Mavis. Dracula has to intervene to keep his hotel a secret and to guarantee the safety of his daughter...

Genndy Tartakovsky has been working in animation for twenty years and has already won three Emmy Awards. Then, with two comedy-savvy screenwriters who have written for the acclaimed BBC series I`m Alan Partridge and the cult US format Saturday Night Live, and prominent US voice actors including Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi and Selena Gomez, Tartakovsky has plenty of drawling talent behind him to make his monstrously entertaining debut as an animated film director with Hotel Transylvania.

Even if the child-oriented scary fun uses quite a few all too familiar means of contemporary animated films, which still work well with children, but can only bring a tired smile to older animation fans, Hotel Transylvania can be called absolutely successful in the end. This is not only because of the amusing basic idea of a hotel for monsters, but also because of the many small allusions to classics of scary and horror films. These are then also what makes the film very entertaining even for older viewers. While the obvious gags are kept rather simple and thus especially small moviegoers should enjoy, hiding in the turbulent events are many more subtly kept jokes that will probably laugh mainly adults.

No matter whether young or old, the gag density is gratifyingly high for all audiences. Whether it's Dracula's attempts to keep his daughter from wanting to discover the world outside the hotel, or the werewolf father who is badly worn down by his hyperactive children, or the trick by which the invisible man becomes visible to the wolf children who have gone wild, all this and many more original ideas make a visit to Hotel Transylvania an extremely entertaining and enjoyable affair.

The charmingly drawn characters are a consolation for many a less successful gag. For, unfortunately, Tartakovsky can't quite refrain from some overly flat silliness and the toilet humor that is probably unavoidable for Adam Sandler films, even in animated form. As a result, the film is unfortunately not quite as clever as it seems to be in its best moments. But admittedly, this doesn't detract from the fun factor. After all, Hotel Transylvania is not made for adults, but for children, and they can certainly laugh tears over farting monsters. Some nice 3D effects, playful details and gags that turn an animated comedy for kids into a fun family film, leave only one conclusion in the end, despite some weaknesses: absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp