Hotel Transylvania 2

(PG) ★★½

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky.

Cast: (voices of) Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher, Mel Brooks.

"The world is a vampire... oh sorry."

NO matter how much critics slag off the output of Adam Sandler, people still go and see his movies.

The problem is the number of fans seems to be decreasing while the number of haters (who aren’t professional movie critics) is increasing.

This is why his movies don’t draw the crowds they used to, and why he’s unleashed more box office bombs in recent times than he used to.

However, one of his more successful outings in recent times was Hotel Transylvania, a CG family adventure that piles every monster movie character (and cliché) into one all-ages comedy.

On the surface, there is no sign of Sandler, which is potentially why it was a box office hit – you don’t see his face or his voice (he puts on a classic “I vant to suck your blood” Transylvanian accent), luring in some of those haters who wouldn’t ordinarily take their kids to a Sandler film.

But dig deeper and his fingerprints are all over it. He’s a producer, his buddies Kevin James, Andy Samberg and David Spade are in the cast, and he’s a writer, with the latter going some way towards explaining why so many jokes are so easy and fall so flat.

Second time around, the jokes are just as easy and fall just as flat, but the film is saved somewhat by a cracking last act, a heartfelt message about accepting people’s differences, and a cool cameo by comedy legend Mel Brooks.

The marriage of the vampire Mavis (Gomez) and the human Johnny (Samberg), who paired up in the first film, results in Dennis (Asher Blinkoff). The boy is the apple of his grandfather Drac’s (Sandler) eye, but the old bloodsucker is worried Dennis will be more human than vampire, potentially ending the Dracula bloodline.

So while Mavis and Johnny visit Johnny’s parents in California to see if it’s a better place to raise a kid than Transylvania, Drac and his buddies take Dennis on an adventure in the hopes of drawing out the toddler’s inner vampire.

Despite being just under 90 minutes long, Hotel Transylvania manages to feel overly long and deliberately padded out. Despite whipping through Mavis and Johnny’s wedding, pregnancy and Dennis’ early years, the centre of the film is bloated and peppered with unnecessary moments – there’s a token dance-off, plenty of drawn-out bad jokes, and dozens of cutaway sight gags, most of which didn’t even draw a giggle from the kids in the audience at the screening I attended.

In some ways though, this is better than the original. Less focus on the last film’s central character, the ultra-annoying Johnny, is a massive plus, while the relationship between Drac and his grandson is actually pretty sweet.

The voice cast does a good job, particularly Sandler, despite the lazy characterisations, although Drac is a more well-rounded protagonist this time around. One of the best additions is Johnny’s mother Linda (Megan Mullally) – the well-meaning mother-in-law whose attempts to be accepting of the ways of the monsters continually comes off as accidentally offensive.

Which brings us to the ace up the movie’s sleeve – a nice message about acceptance and letting people be who they are, rather than who you want them to be. Either way you play it – as a parable on racism, a plea for gay rights, or a warning against pushy parenting – it’s a more-than-worthwhile ethos. As this underlying motif gathers steam, colliding with a climactic battle in the third act, the film starts to work really well, just as it’s coming to its end.

The strong finale almost makes you forgive the preceding 75 minutes, but the fact remains that this drags on lazily for much of its running time. Some kids might get a cheap thrill out of it, but they won’t be begging to watch this one again and again. And if they do, you have my sympathy.