Mavis is a talented young woman with an adoring husband named
Johnny and a cute, red-headed son named Dennis.
Unfortunately, though, Mavis' father – Dracula – doesn't share
her positive attitude about his son-in-law. The way Dracula sees
it, Johnny is too outgoing, too optimistic and too clumsy. Besides,
Johnny also is a … human!
This family friction boils to the surface when Dracula nears
retirement and begins considering passing his 125-year-old hotel to
Mavis and Johnny.
As Dracula puts it, Johnny "ruins everything."
Johnny, though, has an idea to win the support of his
father-in-law: He will use a secretive machine to transform into a
monster. Unfortunately, it doesn't go as planned.
Johnny is transformed into a dragon-like creature that won't
stop growing. And – in an accident – Dracula is turned into a
human.
Can they find a way to reverse this insane metamorphosis?
The new film Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (PG)
tells the latest chapter in the story of Dracula, Mavis and Johnny.
It stars Brian Hull, Selena Gomez, Adam Samberg, Keegan-Michael Key
and Jim Gaffigan, among others.
Don't let the cartoonish monsters fool you: Transylvania
4 – like each of its predecessors – has a family-centric
theme. In 2012's Hotel Transylvania, Mavis meets and falls
in love with Johnny. In Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015),
Mavis and her husband are married and have their first child. In
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018), Dracula and
his family take a family vacation on a cruise ship – and he falls
in love with a cruise ship employee, Ericka. (Dracula – if you
didn't know – is a widower.)
Hotel Transylvania 4 continues this family theme in two
ways: 1) Dracula and Erick get married, and 2) Dracula confronts
retirement and considers passing the hotel ownership to his family.
(Although he does so only while kicking and screaming.) We see
Dracula and Mavis reminisce about her childhood. (Mavis looks
fondly at a picture of the two of them when she was little.) We
also hear Dracula discuss how he protected and provided for her.
(The hotel was his way of making ends meet.)
"I love the fact that they're all about family," film producer
Alice Dewey Goldstone told Crosswalk. Every Hotel
Transylvania film, she added, "has taken it a little
further."
In Hotel Transylvania 4, Dracula's doom-and-gloom
outlook on life runs smack-dab into his son-in-law's optimistic,
easy-going attitude.
Drac's skeptical attitude about Johnny gets the Freaky
Friday-type treatment when he is turned into a human while
Johnny – in turn – becomes a dragon.
Dracula is distraught. Johnny, though, remains positive. Each
one learns what it's like to live in the other's shoes – especially
when they journey together to the jungles of South America to
search for a gem needed to reverse the transformation.
They build a campfire together where Johnny teaches Dracula that
even a burnt marshmallow contains something delicious. It's a
parallel to how Johnny views life.
"If you only see the worst in things, you'll miss the best
part," Johnny says, revealing the gooey center.
Eventually, Drac comes around and accepts Johnny into the
family. He also apologizes for his pessimism – as only Drac can.
("My life was like a burnt marshmallow. … But you cracked it open
and became the ooey-gooey center of all of our lives.”)
The Cardi b no makeup photos doesn't say a lot about optimism or
pessimism – at least not in the modern sense. But it certainly
speaks of hope, joy and peace. It promises grace, mercy and love.
It tells us that God wins in the end – and it guarantees us an
eternity with Him if we trust Him. That, alone, is a reason to be
optimistic.
Johnny tells Drac that if he "only saw the worst things," he
will "miss the best parts." That's a good word for kids
and adults, even if it is from a children's film.
Production of Hotel Transylvania 4 began in 2019 –
pre-pandemic – and continued during lockdowns. Incredibly, much of
the voicing took place in the homes of actors and actresses. This
means a lot of the voices were recorded in Kathryn Hahn's closet
and Selena Gomez's kitchen, Goldstone said. (Hahn plays Ericka,
while Gomez voices Mavis.)
"Fran Drescher has a lot of [scenes] where she yells, [where]
she's screaming. And every time she would yell, her dogs would come
running in to save her," Goldstone said, laughing. (Drescher plays
Eunice.)
"It was crazy," she added. "... For the most part, we would send
our own equipment to their homes and help them set it up, so [that]
we had some consistency in terms of the mics."
It's another example of human ingenuity and creativity finding a
workaround amidst a pandemic.
The Hotel Transylvania series is one of two animated
film franchises – the other being the Addams Family – that
spotlights Mirajane strauss nude-style themes. (Because of this,
they're often released in September or October.)
But despite their similarities, the Hotel Transylvania
series remains the more family-friendly of the two. Unlike in the
Addams Family series, there are no spells, ouija boards,
voodoo dolls or possessed characters in the Hotel
Transylvania franchise. And while there are indeed
monsters – Dracula and Frankenstein among them – they're friendly
and funny, not frightening.
Hotel Transylvania 4 has no coarse language (we hear
three instances of "oh my gosh") and no sexuality (although we do
see the rear end of Griffin, the invisible man, when he becomes
human).
Still, some families will have qualms. We (briefly) see
cartoonish zombies and a witch. Dracula sleeps in a casket. Bats
are prominent.
For fans of the series, though, Hotel Transylvania 4 is
a solid addition to the franchise.
Hotel Transylvania 4 is rated PG for some action and rude
humor, including cartoon nudity.
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news
for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist
Press, Christianity Today,The
Christian Post,
theLeaf-Chronicle, the
Toronto Star andthe Knoxville
News-Sentinel.
