Hotel Transylvania 2 Movie Review

Reviewed by Lynn Barker on Sep 26, 2015

Rating:

Kidzworld reviews Hotel Transylvania 2 in which Daddy Drac tries to make sure his grandson becomes a true vampire.

By: Lynn Barker

In Hotel Transylvania 2, we wonder if vampire Mavis (voice of Selena Gomez) and her dad Drac (Adam Sandler) will part ways over his insistence that young Dennis, Mavis’ son with husband Jonathan (Andy Samberg), gets his fangs and becomes a vampire.

Drac checks to see if Dennis has his fangs yet.Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Selena Gomez records her Mavis voiceCourtesy of Sony Pictures

Story Goes

Hotel Transylvania is now open to humans and Jonathan is trying to help Drac make them more welcome. He and Drac’s daughter Mavis are married and have a cute little boy named Dennis who looks just like Jonathan. Not a fang in sight. When the boy turns five, the normal age at which a vampire gets his fangs, Drac is worried, especially when Mavis decides that the hotel isn’t the safest place to raise her son.

Mavis loves her little monsterCourtesy of Sony Pictures

When Mavis and Johnny go visit Johnny's parents, Mike and Linda in California, Dracula, left to babysit his grandson, gathers up his monster pals Frank, Murray, Wayne, Griffin, and Blobby, to help him put Dennis through a "monster-in-training" boot camp by trying to scare him. They take the boy to Drac’s childhood haunts including a young vampire camp. Will this scare his fangs to the surface? Nothing goes as planned.

Drac plays with his little grandsonCourtesy of Sony Pictures

Fun at vampire campCourtesy of Sony Pictures

Mavis finally decides that the hotel is the best home for her family and returns but on learning that dad Drac evidently isn’t satisfied with her son as a human, plans to take her family back to California. When great grandad, Drac’s daddy Vlad (voiced by hilarious Mel Brooks) comes to Dennis’s sixth birthday party, he is followed by some of his quite scary vampire servants who frighten the heck out of Dennis and also threaten the boy’s best friend Winnie, a werewolf pup. Will Dennis finally get his fangs and turn into a bat? Will he and family continue to live at the hotel?

On a crazy road trip with the gangCourtesy of Sony Pictures

Wrapping up

This film is very sweet and tells us all to just be ourselves no matter how different. Some of the physical gags are funny and some fall flat. A funny bit I like is when Drac gets his first smartphone and has big trouble trying to text or even navigate with his super long fingernails. Jonathan wears a party costume that is a tribute to the Francis Ford Coppola version of Dracula starring Gary Oldman. A lot of kids won’t get it but adults and older kids will. Remember the two huge “buns” of hair on top of his head? More hilarious than scary.

Drac and monster pals hatch a planCourtesy of Sony Pictures

Fifth Harmony recording I'm in Love with a MonsterCourtesy of Sony Pictures

The story kind of sags and slows down in the middle but gains momentum as it moves toward the end where the question of young Dennis’s heritage (vamp or human) is answered in a colorful and animated action-packed way. Unlike some of the recent Pixar or Disney films, there is nothing really new or very unexpected in the story but Hotel Transylvania 2 is as good if not better than the first film and worth a family haunt at the Cineplex. The younger kids might especially like it. We go 3 stars.