‘Hotel Transylvania’ is cute and has a lot of heart, but once is enough

Sometimes movies come along with so much of a marketing push that I get tired of them before I even see them. The trailers are shoved in my face so frequently that whatever merits the film may have are lost because I’m now annoyed at its mere existence.

This couldn’t be more true about the “Hotel Transylvania” films. It also didn’t help that Adam Sandler is the voice of Count Dracula, and I tend to scrunch my nose at most things he does as of late. But upon finding it streaming on Hulu (and knowing they don’t make sequels unless the first one makes money), I thought I’d give it a watch. Turns out it’s a lot more heartfelt and touching than I’d have thought, but it also relies too much on Sandler’s brand of childish humor.

The film begins in 1895 with Count Dracula building a massive hotel deep in the spooky woods as a safe haven for monsters away from humans. He’s also building it so his infant daughter Mavis can be raised safely after the death of his wife, Martha.

Fast forward to present day, and it’s Mavis’s 118th birthday and Dracula can’t wait to celebrate with all his monster friends — Frankenstein (voiced by Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (Fran Drescher), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buschemi) and his wife Wanda (Molly Shannon), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Murray the Mummy (CeeLo Green).

Mavis (Selena Gomez) doesn’t seem all that keen on having the usual party this year, expressing her interest to travel and visit far-off places, like the “Paradise” her parents once visited in the postcard she found in Dracula’s things.

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