Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

"It's for the best that not just Drac, but ALL the characters should retire!"

- AniMat

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is a 2022 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation and released by Amazon Studios. The fourth and final installment in the Hotel Transylvania franchise and the sequel to Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018), the film is directed by Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska (in their respective feature-length directorial debuts) from a screenplay by Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo, and Genndy Tartakovsky (who directed the prior three films). Originally planned to be released theatrically in the United States on October 1, 2021, Sony Pictures Releasing cancelled the film's release plans and sold the film's distribution rights (except China) to Amazon Studios for $100 million, due to rising cases of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in the United States. The film was released exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on January 14, 2022, with a Blu-ray, DVD, Digital and VOD release likely to follow in Halloween 2022, almost 10 years after the first movie.

Plot
When Dracula plans to retire and decides to give the hotel key to Mavis and Johnny, the latter proposes future plans for the structure, which disgust Dracula, which leads him to lie by telling him that only monsters can take care of the hotel. Johnny, with the help of Van Helsing, transforms into a monster to surprise Mavis and causes trouble at the hotel. Due to some incidents now, Drac and his friends are all human and the crystal gem on the staff of transformation has a crack. Now our human monster friends will have to embark on a frantic adventure in the Amazon to find a new crystal gem in order to switch themselves back, or they stay switched like this forever.

Human Qualities
The sequel fell short in front of the franchise as it lacked the charm or charisma that made this franchise pretty good. Despite the fact that Sony Pictures Animation said this would be the final sequel in the franchise, this also ended the franchise on a sour note.

One of the main issues with this movie is that Genndy Tartakovsky didn't really have that much involvement in this sequel as the director other than writing the movie’s script with Amos Vernon and Nunzio Randazzo and being an executive producer with Selena Gomez, which is another reason why this sequel lacks the franchise’s charm or charisma that made them good as well though this could argue that it make sense because he was busy working on his other projects during at the time after the success of Summer Vacation.

Releasing a Halloween themed movie on a January release date is such a strange idea because it's too late at that time, and yet already three months past Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, even though the movie was appropriately going to release on July 23rd and October 1st of 2021, but was pushed due to the COVID 19 pandemic that once happened, and Halloween themed movies are commonly released around late September & October. Making a fourth Hotel Transylvania movie, while not a bad idea on paper, but it’s not that exceptional and completely necessary for those starters, since Summer Vacation already had a positive ending that could have ended the franchise on a good note. This sequel is most likely to exist because both Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation saw box office success of Summer Vacation and therefore wanted more money, so the franchise had to milk for a pointless fourth installment that came from nowhere. Keep that in mind that for you asked, this plan backfired massively, to the point where they canceled its theatrical release entirely without China because of the rise of COVID 19 where they were living during that time, and sent it straight to Amazon Prime Video, where it can easily be pirated by those online hackers that don't have an prime subscription.
 * Fortunately, the movie had a limited theatrical release that began on February 25th to March 2nd last year. Furthermore, the movie was released on April 4th in China for theaters.

Similar to The Addams Family 2 and Monster Family, the very idea of monsters transforming into humans vice versa by a transforming device isn’t that bad of a idea on paper, but it’s not that exceptional and completely necessary for those starters, There couldn’t been funny jokes to keep the concept likable, as well as having an interesting idea on monster and human lives, but sure, and unfortunately, it is very underused very disappointed and very cliched that made the idea look nothing at all. At least other animated movies such as Spies in Disguise handled a better job of having an original concept where super agents transform into pigeons.

Unlike other animated movies such as Rumble, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, and The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, another main issue of the movie is that the pacing is way too fast, despite it being 87 minutes runtime long, the pacing feels like 30 minutes long, which is so hard to follow at times that makes the pacing pretty weak. The movie is overloaded with unnecessary filler every now and then, considering also that the plot is very mediocre and minimal.

Compared to the previous three, the whole summary of the movie is cliched and unoriginal as it's just about someone making a mistake and everyone has to go to the other side of the world to fix it before anything bad happens.


 * The Amazon, South America, is a very bland and unoriginal destination setting and has already been reused in several movies, especially Rio 2.  Even if other countries such as Japan and Australia couldn’t give the same, at least they are a more original and interesting setting. Think about this; Dracula and Johnny are going to find the stone in the Aokigahara forest and meet Yo-kai and local monsters, which isn't that good of an idea, Quite humorously ironic, it shares the same name as its streaming service Amazon Prime Video, which acquired the distributor worldwide rights without China.
 * The sequel can also still overused the clichés, such as the infamous "liar revealed" cliché seen in several movies that were extremely off-putting and makes everyone getting feel so tired about it that they need to shut it up, such as in the scene where Dracula manipulates Johnny into believing that he can't run the hotel due to a real estate clause (when in actuality, Dracula simply found Johnny to be annoying to him), but once he ends up revealing the truth when confronted by  his friends, Johnny becomes aggravated with Dracula and rages off while becoming much larger, angrier, and scarier due to Dracula's manipulation.
 * Continuing to talk about the climax, the climax is also a rehash to Ralph Breaks the Internet (another animated movie that has these same problems). In that movie, Ralph and Vanellope fight a series of Ralph's alter ego clones created by Arthur after Ralph and Vanellope having an argument, and Ralph resolves the issue by realizing that his past actions were bad and decides to spread the issue out. In this movie, almost the exact thing happens except with Johnny in his monster form turning much scarier and angrier and the rest of the others trying to find the crystal that will turn everyone Johnny back to normal.

Missed Opportunities: More rather than having Johnny wanting to become a monster in order get Dracula to like him again (As that conflict was already resolved during the first movie); a much more compelling and interesting storyline would've been him realizing that, since he's not immortal like Mavis and Dennis, he won't live enough to be with them forever and decides to become one of them in order to never separate from his family.

While the animation is very colorful and not bad in general, it may have the uncanniest and weakest animation in the franchise, compared to the previous. And the movie treats the textures if they were from a game from the mid 2000’s, Also, the castle walls in Dracula's chamber look more like they came straight out of an Xbox 360 game from 2008 and some plant models have a low poly look, even other 2022 computer animated movies such as The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild & Netflix’s Marmaduke also feature these kind of texture problems.


 * There are some animation errors at times, such as where Drac and Johnny are falling on top of a mountain, the two can be seen smaller than when they were falling down the mountain in the same shot however, even other 2022 animated movies such as Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, Rumble, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, & Netflix’s Marmaduke will have such notable animation errors.
 * There are also noticeable reused models instead of creating new ones like they did in the previous three. One example being during the Cha Cha Slide scene in the beginning where a lot of recycled background characters are being shown multiple times, (Seriously? How lazy is that?).
 * Despite there not being that much of reused footage from the previous three, there are a few reused scenes at times, such as in the opening scene where Dracula and Mavis are dancing with each other while upside down on the ceiling before Johnny appears and was reused from the beginning of the second movie.
 * Unlike the post sequel era of SpongeBob, some of the facial expressions of some characters are just nightmare fuel, especially whenever someone just freaks out for a reason, especially Dracula.

Some of the human/monster forms look very uncreative in uncanny way imaginable:


 * Johnny's monstrous form looks weird and uncreative at worst, as it’s just a basically generic green dragon created in Genndy style.
 * Griffin's human design has to be the worst out of the human forms, his human form looks completely nothing but a Despicable Me reject.

Some main characters from the previous movies are not involved in the protagonist’s subplot and are too neglected as well as barely doing anything at all:


 * Dennis, Winnie, and Tinkles (minus the latter) have only four-five minutes on-screen and are left in the hotel as left behind characters for the movie’s summary and appear as a brief scene when Dracula hypnotizes him, and again at the end when they find the hotel destroyed as well as completely underutilized, despite being major characters since the second movie. Also, Van Helsing doesn't have that much screen time either, as the last time we see them in the movie  is when Gigi destroys the hotel when Dracula and his friends arrive back from South America.
 * Not only they forgot Dennis and Winnie, the movie also completely forgot all about Vlad, who does not appear in any way at all and wasn’t even mentioned as well, it’s probably because of his actor, Mel Brooks, was busy on working with other films, such as the upcoming Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which came out six months later that year; most people lead to an unresolved raised question regarding him: if Vlad was officially absent in this sequel, did he leave the hotel already? Did he die from his old age? Where is Vlad now?
 * On topic with Dennis and Winnie, it is very bad that both Mavis and Wanda left their father-sanitized children alone in the hotel where every ten cubic meters to endangerment, which means both Mavis and Wanda are terrible mothers who only rely on their husbands and not about the safety of their kids! They also survive the hotel being destroyed by Gigi for hiding a safe spot. In real life, they would have got arrested and straight to jail for such a bad thing with no reason by the policemen! Enough said, both Mavis and Wanda are just worried about their husbands being left in the hotel, but still, it’s a very horrible idea to just leave the children behind in a dangerous situation!
 * On the top about Dennis, in relation to BQ#4, another issue with the waste of the gender swap subplot is that in a movie where the plot revolves around a device that establishes a biological dichotomy between a human and a monster, how would this kind of thing affect a half-human, half-monster hybrid? would it have a unique effect on him? Would he be immune to its effects entirely? Either way, he could have been integral to the plot by virtue of being a half-breed.

The main protagonists are predictably diagnosed with the infamous curse of flanderization:


 * Although Dracula is still likable, has given a rather questionable characterization at best, since, like Naruto in Boruto: Next Generation, his character derailed a little bit since he dislike Johnny in this movie for some reason, even though several moments showed him bonding with Johnny all the way back in the first movie, and he tolerates him pretty well in the second and third.
 * Johnny became another victim of flanderization (again seriously, when will Hollywood learn that flanderization is rarely good and will most likely ruin likable characters), going from a romantic and playful thrill-seeker to a hyperactive man-child. Even Andy Samberg's performance is partly annoying, as while he does a pretty good job as always, for some reason he puts a higher pitch and a goofier register to his voice, which is more obnoxious than funny. He also proves to be a threat to the hotel on its 125th anniversary, making Dracula completely right in not wanting to give his hotel to Johnny. which is extremely out of character for him, because in the first movie, Johnny was the responsible to bring fun and innovation to the hotel's boring routine, and he never puts anyone in danger in the first three.
 * While Mavis is still likable, can get annoying for always relying on Johnny and never understanding Dracula's side, heartlessly accusing Dracula of only caring about the hotel, which is abhorrent to watch after all Dracula has been through in the movie. She is also mildly out of character as in the last two, she was caring about Dennis and wanted to make sure he was safe at all costs but here she ditched him at the hotel even though it isn’t really safe there.
 * Gigi, the "alleged" antagonist of the movie, is by far, the most useless out of the franchise, but also an pretty lame antagonist, it’s because not only she has just over four minutes screen-time in the movie, but also because she isn't very intimidating, even in her latest monstrous form (the one that destroyed the hotel) and very little motivations. On the top,  she didn't have a proper introduction, as she is initially portrayed as Van Helsing's pet hamster (which feels that the fact that she isn't intimidating at all) and she gets hit by the beam and goes extremely terrifying. As if that wasn't enough for you, she is defeated in no time by the transformation beam fired by Dracula, which eliminates any chance of a final battle with at least a decent climax. The first two antagonists of the franchise, Quasimodo and Bela, while having less screen time, underdeveloped, and not as good and memorable as Van Helsing in Summer Vacation, are still far better than Gigi. She is also a ridiculous downgrade from Van Helsing and Ericka since they are more interesting and likable antagonists that are significantly more screen-time and character development, with more distinct personalities and crucial roles in the plot, as well as clever and funny motivations in Summer Vacation.

For some people, the movie can be described as 87 minutes of Dracula torture, this is because throughout the entire film Drac is consistently treated as a punching bag as most of the movie's jokes have him constantly having a hard time trying to be a human. At least, Frank, Murray, Wayne, and Griffin had some funny moments in their human forms. Of course, it can be assumed that all of this happened because of Drac's made up lie that he came up with in the beginning of the movie, but even then it is not justified that he should be constantly tortured throughout the movie, also because in the ending where he finally makes peace with Johnny and everything works out like usual. Also, because of Johnny's flanderization, he became such a threat to the hotel, as proven on its 125th anniversary celebration, giving Dracula the complete right to not wanting to give the hotel to Johnny. Even for just being part of the movie’s summary, it's still very little fun and pretty much violent at the same time, which makes viewers feel more worried about Drac than happy. Nor to mention that the part in which Drac in the amazon drags on for absolutely way too long, making it boring and even more atrociously painful to hear from.


 * On topic with the Amazon, this movie carries the same bad quality in Rio 2 (another movie coincidentally takes place in the Amazon). In both movies, despite the main protagonists Blu and Dracula being right, they get tortured throughout the whole picture, and the movie weirdly tries to make them look like the wrong person in one of those situations, but both fails miserably, because the audiences are not dumb and they will notice the two are the least people on Earth to deserve what they go through in both movies. The scene Mavis accuses Dracula of only caring about the hotel is a lot similar to the scene Jewel accuses Blu of only thinking about himself because they are both tasteless and abhorrent to watch because neither the two deserve that, and, because of this, the way they are both treated cause both movies to be very abhorrent to watch sometimes and even mean-spirited.

False advertising for two reasons:


 * One poster features Tinkles in the Amazon, implying that he might be one of the main protagonists, but it never happens, since Tinkles only appears in the hotel, not the Amazon.
 * Another false advertisement is that Vlad appears in one of the Chinese version posters, but he doesn't even appear in the movie at all, which was mentioned above.

The movie hoards tons of plot holes and continuity errors that retcon/contradict the events of the franchise, similar with The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild kinda has:


 * By far the most infamous plot hole is the fact that when Dracula chase Johnny through corridors after he is transformed into a monster, he hypnotizes Winnie and Dennis so they don't tell Mavis that Johnny is a monster, It was established in the second movie where Dennis is born, that vampires cannot be hypnotized by other vampires. However, it is possible that as Dennis is a half-human hybrid, that hypnotism can work on him, due to the fact that the vampire side only comes from Mavis.
 * Dracula seems to dislike Johnny for some indiscriminate reason, which was resolved all the way back during the first movie.
 * Despite it being confirmed in the first movie that Mavis, like Dracula, cannot go out in the sun, as she happily travels through the rainforest in the middle of the day without any ill effects. How is it possible for a vampire to go out during the day without any ill effects?
 * When Gigi destroys the hotel when Drac and his friends arrive back from South America, how did everyone survive when the hotel was unfortunately destroyed if they were hiding in a safe spot?
 * In the second movie, In the scene where Dracula and his friends are flying on Blobby, at one point, Murray is unrolled from his bandages and shown skinny. In this one, He is inaccurately scaled short instead.
 * In the scene where Dracula chases Johnny down the corridors is, by far, the most dumbest and most nonsensical scene in the movie: what's the point of running and fatiguing to reach your goal when you are the king of vampires and you have incredible powers like immobilization and you can turning yourself into a bat that's faster than a human?
 * On a similar note, at some point during the aforementioned chase scene, there's a wagon of suitcases blocking Drac's way, and he doesn't think it is a good idea to get over it and become a bat. Instead, he becomes a bat just to go through the wagon, only to show off an irony where Dracula as a bat splits between the center of the suitcase wagon.
 * In the beginning where Drac and Mavis are singing "Just the Two of Us" over 125 years ago, it kinda feels a little over 40 years old instead.
 * In the scene where Dracula freezes everyone while cleaning up the 125th-anniversary after the celebration is over, He doesn't freeze on Mavis because according to him, "Vampires can't freeze other vampires '', which is  false because Dracula freezes Mavis rarely such as the end of the first movie and even the dinner scene in the second. This retcons the plot hole of Mavis not being frozen by Dracula also happened during the first episode of the tv series, it’s something that is a little bit carried over.
 * One of the major plot holes is that the movie continually acts like Dracula was intending to give the hotel to Johnny specifically, which is why he makes up the fake real estate law in the first place, but sometimes completely forgets that he was originally just going to put Mavis in charge instead of Johnny. His lie doesn't even address that idea of Dracula passing it on to her, explaining that she can't because she is married to Johnny.
 * Similar to the second movie, it is still pretty confusing on how Mavis can still have her profile picture on the phone with Drac despite the fact that when taking pictures, she is clearly not seen for some indiscriminate reason.

A few parts of the humor may come hip-and-cool to viewers in the strangest way you can imagine. For example:


 * Some trailers used the infamous song "How You Like That?" by the Kpop group BlackPink, which the song doesn’t have anything to do with the movie.
 * In the scene where Mavis is suspicious of where Dracula is, at one point, Wayne does the Renegade Dance for ten seconds to bribe her. This makes this the most dated aspect of the entire movie and only exists to appeal to young TikTok users and Fortnite players.
 * Some parts of the humor consists of useless gross out (although even there is one in the end credits). However, by far, if only not, the most infamous example is where Griffin transforms into a normal human making his invisibility disappear, a shot of his butt is shown after transforming, which is extremely INAPPROPRIATE!
 * This joke is even shown again at the very end, meaning the very last shot in the entire franchise was a rare end shot.

Geography Error: In the scene where Dracula and Johnny arrive in South America, the map clearly shows that they are located in Brazil, but for some reason, all of the signs are in Spanish and the people on the bus talk in Spanish. In Brazil, they don't talk in Spanish like other South American countries, they only speak Brazilian Portuguese instead, this is because Portuguese immigrants arrived in Brazil in the 1500s.

Four Major Nitpicks:


 * What makes the sequel even more forgettable is that it doesn’t use some of the most important element stuff that makes this franchise likable, for example, anything even remotely related to the whole concept of zinging (going as far as not using the word zing even once in the sequel), and quotes from the previous like "Human, monster, unicorn. It didn't matter." and "Bleh Bleh Bleh"  both from the second movie. Actually, one of these quotes is later used, but once in the wrong context, to the point where the sequel is no longer fun to watch nowadays.
 * Before Johnny got completely mad with Dracula, he, in his monster form, acted sympathetically and somehow tried to help Drac on his task in the Amazon. On the contrary, Gigi, who allegedly has always been supported by Van Helsing, becomes a monster who destroys the hotel. Even at first, she showed no signs of revenge or anger towards Van Helsing. If it weren't for this, The hotel couldn't have been technically safe then before Dracula left.
 * The transforming ray/beam effect of the drinking fountain (which is really on accident by Dracula, while chasing Johnny through the corridors) will turn monsters into humans, but for some reason, Blobby and Tinkles turn into a plate of jello and normal dogs instead of humans in the strangest way imaginable.
 * Instead of showing the viewers what the interiors of the new rebuilt hotel and Health Spa looked like in computer-animated style during the ending of the movie where Mavis and Johnny rebuild and gives Dracula to see and got a new makeover one year later, the moviemakers decided to end the movie right before it happens and showed it off a 2D animated credit style sequence instead, resulting being extremely disappointing for those viewers.

Stunt Casting: The movie also featured Twitch streamer Ninja (also known as Richard Tyler Blevins) involved as a starring voice role, he barely gives off a voice performance consisting of anything other than only two lines for the Party Monster, which is even featured during the Cha Cha Slide scene in the beginning, which means that this is yet another example of stunt casting or an miscast just to get people to watch it, which as mentioned above, This was backfired way back when the movie was going to be in theaters before they canceled the theatrical release because of COVID-19, making Ninja an miscast.

Absolutely ridiculous direction by Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska.

Due to the movie’s bad pacing and botched storyline, the sequel felt like it is supposed to be a half-hour tv special of a second low-budget CGI show based on the franchise that a full-fledged useless fourth installment was due to cinemas canceling the theatrical release.

Monster Qualities
Some funny moments every now and then like the first three movies, these include:


 * When Dracula wondered why the bus was going slow and found that it was the heaviness of Johnny's monstrous form,


 * Frank, Wayne, Murray, and Griffin hiding behind the bags and their wives arrived one after another


 * A zombie who became human due to the beam and was cheering who said its over, he is human again, only to be bitten by another zombie and become a sad zombie.


 * The one fart joke is actually funny and the way Drac and his friends get mad at Griffin for creating fart bubbles, despite the whirlpool plug being unplugged, is very hilarious.

The characters, through flaws, are still likable: Some human monster designs are decent: Murray is now a decrepit and fun old pharaoh, Drac and Wayne are decent, and Frank is nothing short of awesome.
 * Dracula
 * Mavis
 * Johnny (despite his flaws)
 * Ericka
 * Frank
 * Griffin
 * Murray
 * Wayne

Just like the previous three, the animation is still good and colorful, despite its flaws. Also, if the strange, jerky movements from Summer Vacation were bothering you, we have good news for you: they have been smoothed out.


 * The 2D-animation still good like usual in the end credits, just like the previous three.

The scene where Dracula avenges the destruction of the hotel by turning Gigi back to normal is pretty good.
 * Dracula's reaction of the destruction of the hotel is extremely sad and heartbreaking. It was the saddest moment in the Hote Transylvania franchise.

With the sole exception of Ninja as The Party Monster, the voice acting is still good, due to the cast reprising the role in first three films as well as new cast.
 * The ending involving Dracula, Mavis and their friends rebuilding the hotel is heartwarming, despite the poorly executed. In fact, during the end credits, the rebuilt hotel got a new makeover.


 * Brian Hull, in particular, gives a fantastic performance, almost sounding identical to Adam Sandler. The same can kind of be said about Brad Abrell as Frank, but he isn't in the film enough for it to leave an impression as Kevin James.

The idea of the monsters being transformed into humans by the transforming ray is good, too bad to say, it is very underutilized and poorly executed.

Like the first three films, Mark Mothersbaugh's score is still great.
 * 1) The opening song about the hotel's past is also very fantastic and memorable. As it makes a callback to the beginning of the very first movie that started it all.

Reception
Like the first three films, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania received mixed reviews from critics, through unlike the movie's three predecessors, the reaction from audience were mixed and they considered it the weakest movie in the franchise, even though it thankfully didn't cause Sony Pictures Animation to go downhill. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 52% of 65 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Much like the trio of films it follows, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania is middling family viewing -- relatively painless, but overall rather uninspired." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 45 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

AniMat give it 3/10, saying that Drac should not just retire, but all the characters should retire as well.

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Trivia

 * Unlike the first three films, the title was shown in the end credits.
 * This is the second SPA film not to feature the Columbia Pictures print logo in the end credits, just the Sony Pictures logo like in Vivo.
 * Unlike Summer Vacation, which didn't show it, The Columbia Pictures logo is shown at the beginning but using a different variant than the first 2 movies. This time, the torch lady becomes Blobby instead of shapeshifting bat.
 * It is also the only film to use the 2018 Sony Pictures Animation logo (which was introduced in Spider-Verse, the same year the third HT Movie came out which had the 2011 logo) where Tinkles carries the logo in its mouth and puts it in the screen.
 * Had this gotten a theatrical release like planned, this would've been the second fully animated movie series to have 4 installments released in cinemas, the first being Shrek.
 * This would have also meant that Sony Pictures Animation would be the second feature animation studio to have a fully animated movie series with 4 installments released in cinemas, after DreamWorks.
 * There was a controversy involving this movie where Tumblr thought Griffin was hot then was surprised when he wasn't hot.
 * Two actors, Adam Sandler and Kevin James didn’t return for their roles for the movie, because they work for current upcoming movie projects.
 * It is also the only movie to use a variant of the Sony 2014-2021 motion logo (where it gains vampire fangs). It also will likely be SPA's last film ever to use the 2014-2021 Sony motion logo in general.
 * A possible reason why the Sony 2014-2021 motion logo was used here was due to the film's long delay, with it shifting from theatrical to streaming in the process. It also did not help that during the delay, Sony introduced their new motion logo in 2021.