Hotel Transylvania

This animated take on Dracula (the voice of Adam Sandler) and big spooks like Frankenstein’s monster (Kevin James) and the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi) has a fun setup and some great gags—but the mania barely slows down long enough for you to take it in. The film is often unnecessarily spastic in telling the tale of a nervous Dracula dealing with his daughter on her 118th birthday (which is young in vampire years). A human (Andy Samberg) shows up at the titular hotel, a building Dracula created to keep dangerous humans away, and his daughter (Selena Gomez) falls for him. The story is hard to digest, but there are some great moments, including every time the vampires turn into bats (it’s cute), and a werewolf baby knowing what plane flight somebody is taking by smelling his shirt (it’s unbelievably cute). But there were too many other moments when I just wanted to look away, because the animation was far too frantic.