wait i have more to say because i’m dumb and care about a children’s movie
it felt like the animation style wasn’t consistent throughout the movie which was pretty distracting, and it didn’t feel like there was enough narrative dialogue? it was a lot of joke aimed at young children, vague plot dialogue, rinse and repeat. and don’t get me started on the plot.
the whole movie is about mavis and johnny’s son dennis not being a vampire, because he reaches his fifth birthday without showing any signs of being a vampire. this prompts drac to, in usual drac fashion, come up with a plan so that mavis will leave dennis alone with him so he can show dennis what real monsters are like in an effort to coax out the monster in him. so he gets johnny to take mavis on a vacation to his hometown of california where, because the subplot of the movie is that mavis wants to move dennis out of the monster hotel because she’s worried it isn’t the best or safest place for him, johnny will convince her that moving isn’t a good idea because he and drac want them to stay living at the hotel. so johnny and mavis go off to visit california and drac takes dennis, frankenstein, murray the mummy, wayne the werewolf, and griffin the invisible man out to all their old favourite haunts so they can scare the monster in dennis our of hiding. and blobby the green blob monster tags along.
anyway. it SEEMS like the whole message of the movie is going to be along the lines of “it’s okay if you aren’t what people expect you to be” or “you don’t have to be something you’re not” but it feels like that’s all for nothing because at the very end of the movie, it turns out dennis IS a vampire! how do we find that out? winnie and dennis are taken hostage by vlad’s henchman/boyfriend (no idea what he was supposed to be because the introduced new characters suddenly and with little introduction) takes them hostage because he finds out mavis married a human and had a child with one. winnie, one of the child love interests, gets hurt so dennis becomes enraged and sprouts vampire fangs along with super-vampire strength, thus beginning the ending scene where a 5 year old bat fights a bunch of bat-gargoyle-creatures. my girlfriend and i agreed it would’ve felt much more impactful if dennis didn’t turn out to be a vampire, but instead showed that he still has his own strengths & showed drac finally accepting that his grandson wasn’t what he was expecting & hoping him to be. grr i care too much about a children’s movie and i am going to bed now