Not just another sequel: ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ is innocent fun

Zachery Halsey, Staff Writer

It’s a regular season of movie sequels as Hollywood continues to pump them out. From the new Marvel movies coming soon, to movies based on books coming out with another installment, there are plenty to go see.

Even “Spiderman” is already on its third revamp with more of the series to come. With all these big time sequels, “prequels” and remakes coming out for older audiences, where does that leave the parents, babysitters and general animated movie goer audiences?

Well look no further since “Hotel Transylvania 2” is currently out in theaters.

The movie opens with the origi­nal cast of the first film gathering around Dracula’s daughter as they find out she is pregnant. The movie continues to go through a couple years as Mavis (Selena Gomez) and Johnny (Andy Sam­berg) raise their new born son along as Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) is there to help the new parents.

As the years pass by the family finds out their newborn son might not be a vampire since he hasn’t grown his fangs and if he doesn’t by his fifth birthday, he never will grow them. With this news, Mavis contemplates leaving the hotel and moving somewhere safer for her human child.

Meanwhile, Dracula and his gang of ghouls try everything in their power to find out if the child has an ounce of monster in him.

I went to go see this movie with my younger brother and I have never seen a group both children and parents alike so enthralled by a movie. I don’t generally go to packed family movies so I am not sure if the entire theater is clapping and laughing during other animated films like they were in this movie. But any laughter and applause this movie received, it deserved.

Now some people might groan at the thought of sitting through a children’s movie. Don’t worry there were many instances of humor bent towards an older audi­ence.

All the monsters are played by old comedians so they each put their comedic spin on the character they portray, so it was nice to see that incorporated. Mel Brooks even had a part in the film portraying Dracula’s father Vlad.

It was very cool to see comedians from my time and my parent’s time coming together for a new audience of movie goers.

If you plan on seeing the film by yourself or with your college bud­dies, just keep in mind that it is in fact a children’s animated film so it tends to get super cheesy. There was more than a few times that a joke fell flat leaving me to stare at the screen showing my displeasure, but it quickly came back with a scene that made chuckle and even at times laugh as loud as the kids were laughing.

The movie was a good example of a film reaching a wide group of audiences. Yes, it is a children’s film but there are jokes for everyone and also a lesson to be learned.

So if you have a free night open and are looking for a more innocent viewing experience, why not check in to “Hotel Transylvania 2.”