Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/595884
NOVEMBER 4-10, 2015 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM I suppose that when it comes to watching terrible Adam Sandler movies I prefer the animated ones. When I am forced to watch a soul- less exercise in desperation like Pixels I can't help but notice the cold dead eyes of someone who used to be Sandler staring at the audi- ence. At least when watching one of his animated films, like Hotel Transylvania 2 (92 minutes) I can pretend that he's still happy, thanks to the helpfully animated character he provides the voice for. It's even better when he voices an undead creature like Dracula — I hardly notice that he sounds like an undead corpse in real life when he is playing an actual vampire. The sequel picks up not too long after the plot of Hotel Transylvania limped its way towards the end credits. Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her boyfriend Johnny (Andy Samberg) have a wedding. Events proceed with absolutely unimagi- native timing, and shortly after the wedding Mavis announces her pregnancy to her father. Naturally, Dracula, much like most of the patri- archal world we live in, expresses a son preference. He is quite the proud Vamp-pa when Mavis delivers on her sole feminine duty of marrying and producing a male heir to carry the family name. Perhaps this antiquat- ed family ideal can be excused by the implied age of Dracula? In any case, Dennis/Denisovich (Asher Blinkoff ) looks pretty human, but apparently there is a little wiggle room in the genetics of human/vam- pire hybrids. In this family-friendly version of the vampire mythos, vam- pires are born instead of rising from the dead, and they have until the age of five to pop their fangs. Also, this process occurs quicker if they get really scared, so Dracula and his friends spend the third act trying to do scary things so Dennis will sprout fangs. This doesn't make a ton of sense, but when has an Adam Sandler movie ever involved the use of logical storytelling? Whether I would have liked the rest of the film any better if it involved a werewolf (Steve Buscemi), a Mummy (Keegan Michael-Key), Frankenstein's Monster (Kevin James) and various other crea- tures of the night trying to terrify a 4-year-old girl into growing fangs I couldn't say. Since women are next to useless when it comes to turning human boys into vampire men, Mavis goes away to California with Johnny to check out the suburbs. Even though Dennis is growing up surrounded by monsters, like Winnie Werewolf (Sadie Sandler), and has expressed no fear or lost any limbs, his mother decides it would be better to raise him as a human. The monsters try various strate- gies to bring out Dennis' inner mon- ster so that Mavis will let him stay at the Hotel. Then the movie takes a hard left and introduces a xeno- phobic Great Vamp-pa (Mel Brooks) and his murderous Man-Bat sidekick (Rob Riggle) who intends to tear Dennis apart like a wishbone. At this point I start wondering how the film scored a PG rating. Overall, this one seems more suited to older kids, and it doesn't really add anything new to the horror-for-kids genre. View at your own risk (of boredom). Now playing at Patriot 14 + IMAX. Old McWerewolf Had an Ax Hotel Transylvania 2 (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Invest In Advertising Opportunities We can show you how to market your business! 910.484.6200 www.upandcomingweekly.com