Tag: David Spade

Here we go again…again.

Hotel Transylvania hasn’t been a shining example of a good animated franchise. Its jokes are cheap, its concept is meh, its animation is on the lower tier of big releases.

But there is now a fourth one. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. Why didn’t they just call it Hotel Transformania? The world will never know, because clearly the FOR is meant to indicate the fourth one.

This was set to come out early October last year, same day as The Addams Family 2 (which also wasn’t great), but sold to Amazon before hand. And then everyone was surprised when it wasn’t out. Turns out the release date wasn’t finalized. Early January next year? Fine.

And a lot of people also found out that Adam Sandler wasn’t even involved with this one. Only him and Kevin James cut the plug, every other older famous person remained. Why did they leave? Where did they go? Maybe only Cotton Eye Joe knows.

Unrelated, did they ever say why there are so many of Dracula’s friends at the hotel, all the time? They don’t work there right? Are they on some permanent free vacation at their friends place of business? Honestly, if this was a first movie question, I have forgotten by now. If so, those early movies are a good metaphor for how Adam Sandler’s movies have turned out the last decade.  He admitted that himself that his movies can just be paid vacations for him and his friends.

Turning Jonathan into a monster is going to make some weird fanart porn now.

So what is up with the hotel of monsters?

Well, the 125th anniversary is happening, and of course, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is fucking things up. They had a big evening planned, so he did a lot more nonsense to surprise Dracula (Brian Hull), who hates surprises. Honestly, calling Jonathan a clumsy person with a big heart at this point seems ridiculous, since he knows what Dracula prefers and ignores all of his well wishes when it comes to things for Dracula. That means Jonathan is really just doing it for himself, or at least, for exciting Mavis (Selena Gomez).

Dracula was going to announce his retirement and giving the hotel to Mavis (and technically, also, Jonathan since they are married), but they find out early and piss him off again, so he lies and says he can’t give Jonathan the hotel, since he isn’t a monster. Some old made up real estate law. And so Jonathan finds someone who has a transformation ray, that turns someone into monster or human, and sure, goes monster. Dracula knows this will piss off Mavis, so he does the thing he always does, tries to hide stuff and not communicate.

Sure enough, he gets turned human (and his friends do also), the ray gets broken, so Dracula and Jonathan have to go on a long perilous journey for another crystal. Eventually the friends and Mavis and them join too. They gotta switch everyone else back, damn it.

Also starring a lot of returning voices, you know, except for the two who weren’t. Brad Abrell, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Jim Gaffigan, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, and David Spade.

Hey look, it is that scene with the monster ray! How fun. 

I don’t care if it is an animated film, but…characters should be able to grow and change over time? And having four movies in a row where Jonathan does the same mistakes, learns a lesson, then does the same sort of thing again isn’t growth. When Dracula distrusts his daughter making decisions, and lies to friends and family, learns a lesson, then does that same sort of thing again next movie isn’t growth. Adding children to a movie and more characters, isn’t growth.

What the heck is the point?

One of my least favorite parts of the third film was the extended dance sequences they decided to have with each monster doing the macarena. Slowly. Over and over. Multiple times in the movie. That was a bizarre waste of time. This movie tried to test me early on, as they had the Cha-Cha Slide and started to do the same thing. Thankfully, it didn’t last as long as the macarena, but I feel like it was done intentionally to troll me.

The movie itself isn’t great. There is no reason for most of the adventure. It could be saved a lot of time if they just…fly…further. They know a lot of monsters who can fly and travel. Fuck. Mavis in bat form could do most of the work in the country, go to the cave herself, and get a crystal from looking safe without all the danger. It is such a nonsensical journey adventure, that exists purely for the movie, when clearly there are many work arounds for it.

Why the hell did the Slime DJ turn into a jello dessert? The goddamn ray said HUMAN and MONSTER. It didn’t say revert to some non-monster form on it. It can take a non-human and make it human. That is it. They had a giant monster dog get zapped and it turned into a regular dog. That isn’t a human either. These are just fundamental issues that make up a movie of lazy writing.

I will say it is technically better than the third film for me. But only because it has less dance sequences. I guess they are turning this into a TV show, with different animation style. Or already did. I don’t know. I won’t watch it.

0 out of 4.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Animated 2018! Basically, all of the animated movies of 2018 that didn’t get their own review.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

Animated 2018

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

First up is the only third film in a franchise in the group, but there are a few unnecessary sequels as well. And in terms of unnecessary things, this is near the top. This film doesn’t relaly have any redeeming qualities. It is very clear right from the get go what a twist would be, so instead of milking it, they give it away early as well.

The real twist is tricking you to give money for this terrible, terrible movie. The ending features a several minute long dance battle, from various artists, and then an even longer Macarena dance party. Yes, that Macarena. Were they paid to have it featured so prominently, has it been too long outside of our pop culture sphere? It seriously had to milk this scene so hard, as each main character needed to be shown doing the dance, and then group shots, and then tons of tourists, and every person everywhere, with extreme body movements to highlight their awkward appearances. It was one of the worst endings of a movie this year, so well done Hotel Transylvania 3. Please stop now.

0 out of 4.

If only Van Helsing was successful hundreds of years ago, none of this would be here today.

Incredibles 2

Next up is a sequel people have actually been wanting forever, and Brad Bird said only when he had a worthy script, and apparently that meant 14 years later. Real time, not the movie time, as it takes place right after the first movie. And I honestly thought he should have waited longer. This film just feels so uninspired by me. I really didn’t need to see moments after they finished the first film, leaving me at the same exact point except we have a baby with changing every power nonsense. I could have used years later, more developed.

This plot feels too similar to the first. Still people are afraid of supers, but instead of the man going out to fight, its now the lady. The plot twist was once again obvious, so it didn’t do much for me. In 2004, Superhero movies were shit, so The Incredibles stood out as a beacon of hope for things to come. Now Superhero films have been able to elevate their game, bring a whole lot more exciting things, and this film more or less stayed the same. My mind checked out by the end, and it felt like too little too late.

2 out of 4.

Babies are hard to care for. Hialrious!

Ralph Breaks The Internet

This sequel is a lot sooner after the first film, to maximize off of its success. However, this felt like a rushed piece of movie that relied on current style jokes only to work, which is going to doom it in the long run. This movie is by Disney, who wanted to flex their expansive collection and throw in all of the princesses and more in an internet hub world to make people giddy, almost as counter to Ready Player One , another nostalgia heavy film. Except this one combines nostolgia with extremely current, so we get memes, we get current popular websites, and it is going to do what many modern comedies do: fade into obscurity in a few years.

It is still nice to look at, and the ending is totally weird, but honestly, they made Ralph into such a shit in this movie. In the first film, he was tired of being a bad guy, who tried to do the right thing, but from his good intentions some bad still happened. In this film, he becomes selfish and straight up almost gaslighting Penelope into staying, and going out of his way to be a dick, whcih causes the problems. He felt like an extreme nice guy. “I did all of this for you, and now you want to leave!? Love me!” These are not the traits to be highlighting in our animated heroes, even if he learns his lesson. He still needed to not be such a dick.

2 out of 4.

Ha ha ha ha screaming goats ha ha manipulation ha ha ha free will.

Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero

This movie is an awkward one, as it had a small release, not a big studio, and looked like absolute shit. Letting us know it is based on a true dog from World War I doesn’t make this feel any less uncomfortable the whole time. In highlighting what a dog did, with most likely extreme examples that might not have happened, we downplay the hell out of actual soldiers in the war who died. I don’t know if anyone is still alive from that war, but I know they would definitely not like this movie iteration.

It was a terrible war, and not saying we can’t make kid versions about the war. But it didn’t do a good job of really informing the details of the war, so it isn’t really educational. Instead, it is a super pup movie, who has a soldier friend, who saves everybody. It is so soft and basic it just feels like a waste of time. Cool, at least one dog in a war was given the title of sergeant. Please don’t trivialize the war at the same time.

1 out of 4.

Yo dawg, just no.

Sherlock Gnomes

For those of you who did not see Gnomeo and Juliet (which I will assume is everybody), it was lawn gnomes, but the Romeo and Juliet story line. And for whatever reason, they got Elton John on board with it, and a lot of his hits were either background, or the tune of his songs with different lyrics. It was uncomfortable. So yeah, let’s do a sequel. But a different story. Completely unrelated, except also being British in nature.

Now, if you are like me, you assumed okay, new story, new hero and will just be gnomes. But no, they think we really like the pair from the previous movie and it is still really about them, with also a mystery and extra characters. And despite the first being a big movie about their romance and getting together, this one is also about how Gnomeo is a shitbag who won’t let his woman do her own things, so he has to be insecure and they should not be a couple. More bad things for kids, really. Also, what the fuck is this Shelock plot line. I haven’t seen Homes & Watson yet, but this has got to be the worst year for that poor detective in hundreds of years. Straight up I will let you know, at some point, Watson is found to be part of the bad guy plot as well, because they want something new. Get out of here.

Oh yeah, and still, Elton John music.

0 out of 4.

Here are four characters no one ever has, or will, care about.

Smallfoot

This is one of those movies I had completely dismissed before watching it. It looked like an Illumination movie, and they are generally godawful always. But it isn’t that! It is Warner Bros, who is known for Lego Movies and Storks (and that’s it right now). Knowing Storks, I wasn’t excited either. But strangely enough, Smallfoot had a lot going on for it. It had pretty good lead acting and some fun characters. It dealt with a serious topic about dealing with religious doctrination, from many angles. It didn’t say blindly follow, or screw all of it and get rid of it. There were layers to the plot.

I didn’t know it had songs in it either, so when they started I was a bit turned off, but for the most part they are really great. Even when one had to take the riff from Under Pressure, it completely ran with the premise and made it into something wonderful. Shit, the music was dope. I laughed. Now the ending did have a lot of problems, it got clunky and a bit off. But for the most part, Smallfoot is a solid film and better than most of the animated films this year. I’m looking at you, Disney and Pixar.

3 out of 4.

Who really has the small feet in this situation, WB, Disney, or Pixar?

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

And finally, we have a movie that came in a summer and I actually heard a lot of good things about. I heard it was hilarious. I heard I didn’t need to watch the show to like. I watched the first Teen Titans a few times, and it seemed quality. The Go version looked like, and maybe even smelled like trash. And it turns out, their movie seems to go with my preconceptions of the show.

Let’s make this clear. I didn’t laugh once. It had a few fart and potty jokes in it. It had a group of five people but it could not at all let them all be the stars, despite it being a team film. Clearly, a movie about Robin wanting a movie about himself will be more about him. Fine. But the other four are barely used. Cyborg is used a lot more, then Beast Boy, and our girls are rarely mentioned or get a line it seems. It is also a surprise musical, with some tunes being nice.

But what makes this movie insufferable is its over reliance on meta humor and current meme standards. We get it. Its a movie about making a super hero movies. We got superheroes in it, and they are hilarious. It just went all these terrible directions and never felt like something I would ever want to watch. It is like an idea someone made on an internet message board, and for whatever reason, a studio executive was drunk and actually listened to it. Yeah, a movie about making movies. But fart humor. And not showcasing all of the members of the team. And repeated jokes. Yes. God awful.

0 out of 4.

God awful.

Overall, I am not surprised that three of these films got the lowest rating. I am surprised at how much I disliked Teen Titans though, could never imagine that poor of a film. I figured Sgt. Stubb would have been worse. I am surprised at the mediocrity from our big studios and how good Smallfoot ended up being.

Some of these films will make the worst of the year list, none will make the best. If you wanted quality animated films from this year, from America, check out Isle of Dogs and Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse.

In case you haven’t been keeping count, The Do-Over is movie #2 of the Sandler-Netflix collaboration. Netflix has said they don’t care about having the best movies, they just want a very diverse set of films, films that reach many different demographics and personality styles.

So they don’t always care about the critics. Which is why they offered Adam Sandler a four movie deal, because some people really like his brand of comedy, including the overseas market. Go figure.

Movie #1 was The Ridiculous 6, which I found very disappointing. The Do-Over seems to be going in a very different direction, both in terms of style, genre, and size of the cast. So there is a chance that this one ends up much better.

Holy crap, the promo images for this film are crap!

Charlie (David Spade) doesn’t like his life. And no, its not because the actor hasn’t had a hit in a long time. He is at his ten year high school reunion, watching his constantly cheating wife (Natasha Leggero) get down with the old high school prom king (Sean Astin). He is a bank manager, but the bank is inside of a grocery store. There are two step kids who treat him like shit. But then he sees Max (Adam Sandler).

Max has changed and seems really chill and cool now. And when his life goes on a vacation with him, Charlie decides to hang out with Max on a boat and have a great bro weekend. Then the boat explodes, Charlie is drugged, and Max takes him away.

Why? No, not to kill him. Max thinks that Charlie hates his life, so he decided to fake their deaths taking the identity of two people who recently died. They had a lot of money, a sweet vacation home, and they can just get away from it all and get a second chance at life. Or, you know, a do-over.

But there are problems with their plan, especially since the two men were murdered and those who are after them are going to come after them too. But that is a problem for later. Right now it is time to party party party.

Also starring Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, Nick Swardson, Catherine Bell, Michael Chiklis, Luis Guzman, and Torsten Voges.

Seriously, what do I do with any of these pictures? So generic.

The Do-Over just may very well be one of the okayiest movies I have ever seen this year. Almost on every front the film just feels average. The acting is as expected, the jokes are average, the twists are too many and the plot a little bit stupid. But some of the action scenes are entertaining, some of the jokes made me smile, and some of the twists were actually decent.

but taking it as a whole, there are a lot of stale moments. The intro goes on for too long. Too many fake identities for Sandler, and just too many twists overall.

It isn’t super strong on comedy or action, making the jokes and shots seem like after thoughts.

But when compared to the last 15 or so films, it is at least better than 12 of them. That is saying a lot about Sandler’s recent film career, but what it really says is that I loved You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and didn’t think Just Go With It, Pixels, or That’s My Boy were that bad. These comparisons still probably don’t sell the movie for you, and honestly, they really shouldn’t.

Would not super recommend.

2 out of 4.

Happy Marcho-wene! For those who read this months from now, I quite lazily decided to finally review Hotel Transylvania 2 in March. Hell, it even came out to DVD in January. No excuse valid, not even a busy Oscar season.

I thought Hotel Transylvania was only okay and really wasn’t surprised it had had a sequel. The animation isn’t top tier, so it is probably relatively easy to throw together a movie. And you know everyone in the voice cast is available for work. They keep busy, but they keep busy together.

Except for one person. CeeLo Green! He voiced the mummy in the last movie, but this time he is nowhere to be found. Instead they got Keegan-Michael Key to voice the mummy, keeping their “token black role” to one I guess?

Oh, and now old people might be voicing characters!

Mavis (Selena Gomez) and Jonathan (Andy Samberg) are getting married! But that isn’t the important plot point. They invite all of the family over, on both sides, except for Mavis’ Grandpa (Mel Brooks). He apparently doesn’t like humans. That will come back later.

Then they have a kid. A little ginger kid (Asher Blinkoff), gross I know. Because he is a male, Dracula (Adam Sandler) assumes he has inherited the vampire DNA (because his genetics is weird) and can’t wait for him to go doing Monster stuff. But instead, he can’t fly, has no fangs, can’t turn into a bat, and does a lot of normal baby things. Mavis is now very protective of the baby, living in the harsh Hotel monster environment. Jonathan just wants her to trust a babysitter and let them spend some time alone together.

Now it is like, five years later and it is still the same. Mavis wants to move to California, where Jonathan comes from, to live a normal and safe life. So Jonathan agrees to take her on a trip, but he likes the hotel and likes working there. So Jonathan and Dracula agree to hatch a plan: While they are gone checking out Cali, Drac will take the kid and go on a fear-adventure with his friends (Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key) to scare him into going full vampire. Jonathan will try and make her think California is terrible so she won’t want to leave. Can’t go wrong.

Also featuring the work of Rob Riggle (Which was great), Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, and Dana Carvey.

Jonathan fucked up. How could you go back when you get rainbow teeth?!

Hotel Transylvania 2 doesn’t live up to its predecessor. It also doesn’t improve anything along the way, with the exact same quality of animation.

First of all, it takes a long time to really understand just what this movie is about. Sure, vaguely it is about the family the whole film, but that isn’t a plot, those are just characters. A good third of the movie happens at least before we find out that the plot is a dad and husband lying to their daughter/wife, on a very ridiculous idea.

Secondly, it is all over the place in terms of applying its own rules. Namely I want to talk about vampires. They early on make the joke about how vampires can’t have their reflection, commonly shown through mirrors, but also any other thing that would capture their image. So of course, the wedding photographs are a bit funny. But then they let the vampires use skype and appear on video cameras, like they are really anything different. And of course, if they were wondering if the boy had any vampire in him, all they had to do was take a picture of him and see what happened. Unless in this world the vampireness just can develop all at once, and literally zero traits show up before hand.

Finally, the ending is a complete disaster. It ends with a complete brawl, all of our main characters versus an army of other characters (I wouldn’t want to spoil it). But yeah, it basically ends the same way that Grown Ups 2 ends. The fight is unnecessary and a bit nonsensical. It is unnecessary because it is the type of thing that could have been prevented and stopped at any moment by one of the characters literally just saying something. The bad guys wouldn’t have a beef with most of the monsters either, so they’d have no reason to attack them. And it was nonsensical, given the extreme powers that apparently exist in tiny bat forms. They just wanted to end it on a silly note, and kids like brawls I guess. But it is a shit move.

There were the occasional funny jokes. But this film had no focus and had no great conclusion. Mavis should take the baby and leave her husband and family behind, I think.

1 out of 4.

Joe Dirt: Cult Classic, Classically Bad, or just a shit movie?

Hard to say, depends on who you ask. I would argue that it had a few redeeming jokes, could have been good, but overall, just a shit movie. Which is sad, because I tend to just feel sorry for David Spade more than anything. I liked Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Or at least a few redeeming jokes/scenes. Fuck. So I guess I just feel bad overall. He probably just misses Chris Farley.

And then we got Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser. Was it wanted? Hard to say.

But it exists and it was released exclusively on Crackle, because Sony went and financed the film. So you can watch it in all 480p glory with commercials, right now. Which is why this is day 2 of my “Fucking Finally” review week.

480p, because if any higher, you could tell that the hair is not actually a wig, but his real hair!

This sequel takes place not at all directly after the first film, and not just because I don’t remember how the first film ended. But Joe (Spade) and Brandy (Brittany Daniel) are still together and they even got married. Yay! You knew that from the picture above.

Things were going well, technically. He even got Brandy pregnant to make a little Dirt. Turns out Brandi was actually popping out triplets though, all girls. Oh well, life is still fine. Even if Dirt just gets farted on at work and his family thinks he is a loser. To prove he is not a loser, he runs back to the trailer during a tornado to get something for one of his daughters. This makes him Wizard Of Oz it up and get transported to another place, where it lands on the leader of a gang!

Hey, that makes Joe the new gang leader, according to the second in command, Foggie (Patrick Warburton). Also, it is now 1965. Time travel, just because.

The rest of the movie is literally Joe Dirt existing in the past, doing past stuff, like meeting Lynyrd Skynyrd, before they are famous, doing a Cast Away parody, and other stuff. Heck, the whole thing is really a bigger Forrest Gump parody.

Also you can find Mark McGrath, Dennis Miller, Tracy Weisert, Christopher Walken, Rhonda Dents, and Kevin P. Farley stomping around at various points in this movie.

Feast your eyes upon this image and know pain itself!

Look at that image above. Look at it hard. Does it make you feel bad inside? Does it make you hate yourself? Does it make you wonder how could an image like that appear in a movie that doesn’t have “Movie” in the title?

That’s it! Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser does what no one thought possible. It created something on par with Scary Movie 5, The Starving Games, and Meet the Spartans. Shitty parody movies with barely a theme that have one unrelated scene after another to make terrible pop culture references and call them jokes.

However, Joe Dirt 2 doesn’t even have a theme. It just makes terrible references, not jokes, just references, and moves on. The picture above is trying to make it seem hip and cool, by putting a gif meme directly in the film to appeal to the youth of today and just seeming terrible. It literally came out of nowhere and didn’t even make sense in the scene it was in!

Honestly, I found maybe two scenes slightly amusing. The Skynard scene and the nickname scene. However, like every “joke” in this movie, they both still go on too long and make me sick of it before it is through. In a way, that describes the films as a whole. Joe Dirt could be considered an amusing movie. Joe Dirt 2 elongates the joke too far, making me hate 1 and 2 collectively more than I did before.

0 out of 4.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

I miss Chris Farley. I don’t know a single person, outside of future review comment trolls, who hated the guy. He had some of the best sketches on SNL, was always full of energy.

Sure, his movies are hit and miss. Sometimes terrible. But they helped elevate David Spade way more than he could on his own. Sure, he mostly wasted it after the fact, but he tried, damn it.

I wanted to see I Am Chris Farley, which yeah, is a made for TV documentary. It aired on Spike TV. I was curious about Farley before he was big on SNL, and since they interviewed tons of his former friends and coworkers, it would feel great to hear some behind the scenes stories of some of the bigger sketches.

Shit, they were even able to get Lorne Michaels to do an interview, and I assume that dude is super busy.

Maybe it isn’t a “traditional documentary” on a “respected channel” that is worthy of a “Review” but I am “writing” it anyways.

This is a short post because there isn’t a lot to talk about. I learned about Farley’s earlier life. I learned about how he played Rugby in college, how he got into sketch comedy and eventually SNL.

The highlight of course would be the stories about and dealing with Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker. And the stories we hear are told by Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroid, David Spade obviously, Bob Odenkirk, Bob Saget, Christina Applegate, his brother Kevin P. Farley, Pat Finn a college friend, and more actors of course.

As a suggestion, you might want to have a copy of the SNL: Best of Chris Farley on hand, because you are going to want a lot more Farley than the documentary can give you and want to see the sketches without tons of interruptions from his friends telling stories. Pure. Unadulterated. Farley.

But if you are cheap, just watch Tommy Boy instead. It will get you through the urges I suspect, but not fully satisfy them.

2 out of 4.

Here are some facts about Adam Sandler!

Adam Sandler has never made a sequel to any of his movies before Grown Ups 2. He has been in one sequel before, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, but he wasn’t in the first film, and he obviously didn’t make, direct, or star in it.

Who would have thought that Adam Sandler secretly had some standards? He only works with new(ish) ideas. That is unless his film makes a lot of money, like Grown Ups did.

Okay, that is really just one long fact about Adam Sandler. Sorry if you expected more.

The scene from the trailer where he says “Your car is filthy” is cut out. Disappointment. The movie takes place soon after Grown Ups, except now in a small town! Lenny (Sandler) has moved his family away from Los Angeles for a quieter and simpler life. Long story short, Grown Ups 2 is a day in his and his friends life.

Lenny’s wife (Salma Hayek) wants to discuss having a fourth kid. Marcus (David Spade) just realized he has a son who is visiting him today. Kurt (Chris Rock) wants to celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary, but his wife (Maya Rudolph) forgot. And uhh, Eric (Kevin James) really loves his mother and hides that fact from his wife (Maria Bello)? One of his kids might be dumb? His part doesn’t really have a plot.

There are other characters too. Like Nick Swardson, playing some sort of extremely drugged out bus rider. Or Taylor Lautner, leader of the frat boys, with assistance from Milo Ventimiglia.

Sorry agian, but I think that is the best plot description I can give of this film. Honestly, it feels like it is a skit movie. The plot is basically childish adults hanging out, so most of the scenes are really unrelated. It isn’t set up like a traditional skit movie, like the recent Movie 43, but it feels like it could be a long strange episode of Saturday Night Live. Or a live action Family Guy.

The amount of cameos in this movie only helps that stigma. Here is a big list! There is Colin Quinn, Tim Meadows, Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Austin, Dan Patrick, Aly Michalka, Andy Samberg, Will Forte, and even Paulina Gretzky, daughter of (of course) Wayne Gretzky.

Yet no Rob Schneider. Where the heck did he go from the first movie?

I say some shocking things in this review about Mr. Lautner. Read on to find out! D: D:There is a lot wrong from this movie. All the jokes are extremely low-brow, almost 100% poop and sex jokes. In fact, there were so many sex related jokes that I was surprised this movie was rated PG-13 still.

It just felt bad overall. Yes, I still found some of the scenes humorous, but because it was put together so badly and without any context, it just left a rank taste in my mouth. There might have been ten minutes worth of plot. Maybe.

The CGI was out of place in this movie too. The Moose didn’t look real, nor did the “tire rolling down the hill” scene. It almost felt like a cartoon, in that people were doing things that should have killed them, but they were completely fine afterwards.

The ending itself is lazy humor. I am describing it as slap stick to the extreme, as it ends with all the adults in a literal fist fight with a group of frat boys, and kicking there butt. I do mean all the adults, as in everyone linked to above. The ending of the movie is just a long brawl.

Speaking of the frat boys, Taylor Lautner was literally the best part of this movie, and he had a huge role as the main villain, with tons of dialogue. Yet he wasn’t even listed in the credits? What? Six different frat boys were credited, only two of which had real names, but not the main frat guy.

Just an example why this whole film was a mess. That and the unexplained disappearance of Rob Schneider.

 

1 out of 4.

Oh heck yeah, it is October now! That means we get some Halloween themed movies, and of course, an increase in horror films. I am not as excited about those, but it comes with the territory.

I was a bit apprehensive about Hotel Transylvania at first. Is this just another quickly made CGI movie with a group of characters going on a journey? They have a lot of those. But then I found out it was being made by Genndy Tartakovsky, who brought us Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. This can only lead to good things.

Like in real life, diversity in friendships is expected, with only one of each type of creature/race allowed.

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is a pretty big deal. But now he finds himself a single father, with his wife being killed by those gross mean humans in the 1800s. Well, he vowed to never let the mean old humans mess with his daughter or friends ever again. So he decides to build an enormous fortress, hidden from society. Heck, if he can also scare his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) into staying there forever, it’d be perfect. He also decides to run this place as a hotel, a premier destination that has never seen the likes of a human since its creation!

The movie takes place in modern times, the eve of Mavis’ 118th birthday! She was told she could go out and see the world at that time, which Dracula lets happen. But he sets up a fake village to scare her into believing him about the horrors of humans, which works very successfully! Unfortunately, it also gets the eye of Jonny (Andy Samberg), a human hiker (stoner?) who is able to stumble upon the Hotel and ruin its perfect streak.

Dracula has to go into a panic! He can’t just go and kill him, that would set back monsters hundreds of years, they are over that stuff. Instead he has to hide him, eventually in plain sight as a Frankenstein like monster. Too bad he is also the only one “around Mavis’ age”, and she kind of falls for him. Whoops. Can he hide the human and protect his hotel’s record, while lying to his daughter and guests? Huge cast of people at the hotel, including his friends the Mummy (CeeLo Green), the Wolfman, wife and kids (Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon), Frankenstein and wife (Kevin James, Fran Drescher), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz).

You can’t even handle the amount of celebrity voice actors!

Goods news, adults who read this (because I clearly have a large child readership base), you won’t be bored by this family movie! That is always a plus. It also isn’t full of fart jokes, only about one, which is strange for something with Sandler involved.

It had a lot of things working for it. The quick Dracula explosions, the voice acting (most characters you couldn’t identify right away their actor, except for Invisible Man), the animation, the plot. All pretty decent. I didn’t like the Jonny character at all, his voice annoyed me and his actions. I was kind of hoping Dracula would just hide him in a dungeon the whole time and be good to go, but eh, it happens. Was just a bad stereotypical modern hippie traveler.

The only other issue for me is that I just know I never really want to see it again. I don’t think it will be interesting a second viewing. Very strange, I know. But I think its just a one and done type of deal. So if you are going to go see it, might as well wait til closer to Halloween. Worth a gander, but not a buy.

2 out of 4.

You know what would make Grown Ups better? More SNL cast members. I don’t think they got enough of them.

Just kidding. That was the opposite of the truth. With at least 8 people who are (or used to be) SNL cast members (could be more? I am not an SNL addict), it helped the movie seem like a “old friends get back together” type event anyways.

Some people weren’t invited to the reunion though.

Alright, the movie is about a group of old friends from a smaller town. When they were younger, they won a basketball championship. Now? Their old coach is dead, so they are celebrating his life with a reunion for the weekend.

We have Adam Sandler, now rich, married to Salma Hayek. Kevin James, now fat, married to Maria Bello. Chris Rock, now a housedad, married to Maya Rudolph. All three of them have two kids each. Rob Schneider is on his third (or fourth?) marriage, and has 3 kids (two of which are babes). And last, David Spade, all alone and a bachelor.

OKAY GOT IT ALL? GOOD.

Anyways. Throughout the weekend they try and relive their childhood. They try and get their kids used to the outdoors. They try and fix each others problems, as they haven’t seen each other for a long time.

By the end, the kids are outside more. Their lives are fixed by each other. They are bigger friends. And their wives still don’t hate them. That is more or less the plot. Mostly just a bunch of random events and activities, where these now grown ups get to try and relive their childhood memories, and joke on each other the whole time.

I mean. Parts were okay? I thought it had a couple decent moments. But they obviously tried to make it too family friendly and just felt muzzled. I think Schnieder was badly cast as “weird spiritual vegan dude”, and Spade as a bachelor felt very child predatorish. He is the creepiest single man alive, and I would even compare that to myself.

No one else (outside of Bello and Schnieder)) probably had to do much acting. I think most of it was them just acting like they probably normally would act. So I thought that was kind of lame. Just everything seeming more or less normal. Oh well! I think we can all agree though that Rob should try going back to red hair, am I right?

Badly pixelated for your protection.

So yeah. Nothing really special about this movie. Just a subpar comedy.

1 out of 4