Hot Take: Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Hot Take: Can we call the formulaic HT series a franchise now? We can definitely call it simple. Forgettable works, too.

Here’s the unavoidable truth of it all. We’re not going to avoid a Hotel Transylvania 4. In its first weekend, the Adam Sandler animated *GULP* franchise raked in another $40 million+ opening and is likely to land somewhere around the $150 million when all is said and done as its previous installments did. Kids, apparently, love Hotel Transylvania. At least one adult doesn’t get it. That would be me. 

Watching Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation was mind numbing. The thinly premised, character overloaded *GULP* franchise continued with the monster crew heading out on a monster cruise where the cruise director is out to get revenge for their family’s legacy. All of the characters are back. Adam Sandler returns as Dracula. Selena Gomez and Andy Samberg are back as Mavis and Johnny. All of Drac’s friends are back — Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade), Frankenstein (Kevin James), Frank’s wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), Wayne’s wife Wanda (Molly Shannon), Murry the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key who replaced CeeLo Green), Blobby (Genndy Tartakovsky). Even Drac’s father Vlad (Mel Brooks) returns. There are new characters, too, which add the voices of Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Chrissy Teigen, Joe Jonas, Chris Parnell and others to the star-studded voice roster. The formulaic animated flick features the hotel owning monster crew needing a vacation so they take one. The crew lands on a cruise ship which is basically a hotel on the water. The first ever monster cruise is a set-up though as Captain Ericka Van Helsing (Kathryn Hahn) looks to get revenge for her great grandfather Abraham (Jim Gaffigan) and take out all of the monsters especially Dracula who is smitten with the attractive Ericka. (He zinged! And you know you usually only zing once. Yeah. That’s a thing!)

The good news is I’m likely to forget everything that happened in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation within 72 hours. I can’t remember a thing that happened in Hotel Transylvania 2 and I sat out the original. I think? Honestly, I could have seen Hotel Transylvania and wiped out every memory of it in my life. This provides the movie the luxury of rolling out every monster joke again because who could remember what happened in the previous installments. I do remember loving the character Blobby and Blobby was a hit in HT3, too. There was even a novel approach where Blobby makes Blobby Baby and Puppy Blobby from his own gelatinous figure. 

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is purely for children. There’s nothing here for adults outside of spotting the very recognizable voice cast. If you grew up a Looney Tunes fan, there’s the obvious influences that classic animated franchise had on Hotel Transylvania‘s storytelling. Outside of that, I got nothing for you if you’re over the age of 12.

Why Watch?

You’re a kid or your kid won’t shut up about wanting to see it.

Why Skip?

The year you were born starts with a 1.