Sleight of Film

Today’s quick review: Hotel Transylvania 2. Now that Mavis (Selena Gomez) and Jonathan (Andy Samberg) are married, Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) faces a new challenge: making sure his grandson Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) grows up to be a monster just like him. But as the boy’s fifth birthday approaches with no sign of fangs, Dracula and his friends hatch a plan to awaken Dennis’ monster powers by going behind Mavis’ back.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is an animated family comedy that chronicles the next phase in Dracula’s family life. Although his grandson Dennis loves life in Transylvania, Dracula risks losing the boy to the siren call of a normal human life in California. Hotel Transylvania 2 continues in the vein of the first movie, combining monster humor with an ensemble cast and a family-oriented plot. The result is another fun but insubstantial romp.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is a natural progression of the first movie. Dracula deals with the possibility that his grandson may not be the vampire he hoped, while Mavis questions whether her family belongs in the monster world or the human world. Dracula’s attempts to reconnect with his monstrous roots give the movie another easy source of humor, and the movie’s slapstick remains light and inventive.

Still, Hotel Transylvania 2 is not quite as fresh as the original. The beats of the plot are a little more predictable, the reliance on pop culture is more overt, and the monster humor is not quite as organic. None of these issues will tarnish the movie for anyone who enjoyed the original; by and large, the sequel is a capable iteration on roughly the same formula. But critical viewers will find aspects of the sequel to nitpick.

Once again, Hotel Transylvania 2 is a solid pick for anyone looking for a light, energetic, and family-friendly comedy. The movie does not pack any real surprises, but its subject matter continues to be a sweet spot for physical humor and low-stakes family conflict alike. Check out Hotel Transylvania 2 if you enjoyed the first or just need something unabashedly light. Those looking for more substantial comedy may want to pass.

For a family animated comedy in the same vein, try Monsters vs. Aliens. For a family fantasy comedy that deals with similar themes, try Shrek 2.

[6.7 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2510894/). I give it a 6.5 for decent humor and a fruitful premise.

Today’s quick review: Hotel Transylvania. Over a century ago, Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) founded Hotel Transylvania as a safe haven for monsters the world over, especially for his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). But when Mavis wants to leave home for her 118th birthday, Dracula does everything in his power to convince her the outside world is a scary place with the reluctant help of Jonathan (Andy Samberg), a human backpacker passing through.

Hotel Transylvania is an animated family comedy that recasts Dracula as an overprotective father. Still scarred by the loss of his wife at the hands of the humans years before, Dracula has channeled his vampiric powers into creating a resort that is perfectly safe—and perfectly boring—until a young human teaches him to loosen up. Hotel Transylvania gets some good mileage out of this premise, resulting in a tame but enjoyable family comedy.

Hotel Transylvania’s premise gives it plenty to work with. The monstrous nature of Dracula’s guests is a ready source of comedy, the accumulated lore of the monsters lets the movie play with pop culture and monster conventions, and the core plot point of Dracula keeping his daughter overly sheltered is a solid backbone for the movie. The gags are backed by a solid voice cast that includes Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, and CeeLo Green.

The main sticking point for Hotel Transylvania is how on-the-nose it is. Everything from the setting to the story is designed to fill a specific role in a specific way, usually sacrificing broader world-building in favor of quick gags. Viewers who are just in the movie for light, family-friendly entertainment will not mind its superficial bent, but exacting viewers will find that its creativity dries up in a few places.

Hotel Transylvania skews formulaic, but the combination of a rich premise, a talented cast, and charming comedy makes it a worthwhile watch for those interested in what it has to offer. Give it a shot when you are in the mood for something unabashedly silly. For a more robust parody of classic horror, try Young Frankenstein. For an animated family adventure in a similar vein, try Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Spies in Disguise.

[7.1 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0837562/). I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for a basic but charming premise.

Today’s quick review: Hocus Pocus. Max Dennison (Omri Katz), a teenage boy living in Salem, Massachusetts, accidentally gets involved in local history when he awakens Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Mary (Kathy Najimy), a trio of witches who once tormented the town. Now Max, his sister Dani (Thora Birch), and his classmate Allison (Vinessa Shaw) have until dawn to stop the witches before their stay becomes permanent.

Hocus Pocus is a family fantasy comedy adventure about a group of children who accidentally resurrect a trio of witches on Halloween night. Through a series of mishaps, the Sanderson sisters get a crash course in the 20th century while Max and his friends scramble to find a way to stop them. Hocus Pocus is a fun and imaginative romp that fully embraces witchcraft, Halloween, and the mischief the right children can get up to on the wrong night.

Hocus Pocus has an energy that is hard to come by. The movie has no pretensions but instead embraces every aspect of its story, from the faux-Colonial history of the Sanderson sisters to the lighter Halloween traditions of modern Salem. The movie never hesitates to indulge in comedy, and it has a knack for picking seemingly random jokes that nevertheless hit the mark. The result is a romp that plays rather adroitly by its own rules.

At the same time, Hocus Pocus has heart. The story is loose, a thin excuse for classic witches to interact with the modern world, but the stakes are real enough to matter. The characters are likewise thin, but they are chosen well, and even the basic interactions between the witches and the kids are a treat to watch. Hocus Pocus is not high art, but it has the instincts it needs to make the audience care.

Hocus Pocus will not be for everyone. It has a tendency to make up the rules as it goes along, it unabashedly prioritizes comedy over plot, and it is missing the careful scripting and character work seen in other family movies. But for anyone willing to roll with the punches, Hocus Pocus is a passionate and surprisingly creative movie that is well worth checking out.

For a family adventure with a similar spirit, try The Goonies. For a more mature but similarly adventurous horror comedy, try The Lost Boys. For straight fantasy adventure with some of the same charm, try The Princess Bride or Stardust. For a more surreal family fantasy about witches, try The Witches.

[6.9 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107120/). I give it a 7.0 for energetic comedy with considerable upshot for the right viewer.

Today’s quick review: The Witches. After a boy (Jahzir Bruno) loses his parents in a car accident, he goes to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer) in Alabama, where she slowly teaches him to engage with life again. But when the boy has a close call with a witch, his grandmother takes him to a luxury hotel to get away, only for the boy to stumble upon a convention of witches led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) herself.

The Witches is a family fantasy adventure loosely based on the book by Roald Dahl. The Witches follows the evil-fighting duo of a little boy and his grandmother as they take on a hotel full of child-hating witches. The movie has roughly the same beats as both its source material and the previous film adaptation. However, a slightly more streamlined story makes The Witches easier to follow, if still quite surreal overall.

The Witches takes advantage of modern CGI for an updated look for its witches. Disguised in wigs, gloves, and makeup, the witches conceal snake-like features which they use to prey on children. The look is suitably unsettling, and it allows Anne Hathaway and the other actresses indulge in some macabre slapstick. At the same time, the movie places a lot of weight on the witches’ true form, a reveal that only takes it so far.

As far as story is concerned, The Witches does not have much substance, but it does a better job with its scaffolding than the previous adaptation. The movie manages to work in all the exposition it needs to without feeling entirely unnatural, and the struggle with the Grand High Witch is laid out well enough to feel like an actual conflict. Still, the story is stunted and oddly scoped compared to similar movies, making it an odd choice.

How much you get out of The Witches will come down to taste. Fans of the original Roald Dahl idiosyncrasies will prefer the Anjelica Huston version, which worries less about story and more about its zany conflict. Fans who prefer more grounded conflicts will appreciate the remake’s attempts at keeping everything in perspective. But in any case, The Witches is a surreal movie that will only appeal to specific viewers.

For a Halloween fantasy comedy with a better sense of proportion, try Hocus Pocus.

[5.3 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805647/). I give it a 6.0 to 6.5 for a creative but truly far-fetched story.

Today’s quick review: The Witches. After the death of his parents, Luke (Jasen Fisher) goes on the road with his grandmother Helga (Mai Zetterling), who tells him all about witches and their habits. By sheer coincidence, Luke and his grandmother run into a witches’ meeting at the hotel where they are staying, giving Luke one shot to stop the Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston) from using a potion to turn England’s children into mice.

The Witches is a family fantasy adventure based on the book by Roald Dahl. A boy and his grandmother stumble upon an evil plot by a convention of witches and must risk life and limb to put an end to it. The Witches features the bizarre, freewheeling style Roald Dahl is known for. Fans of the surreal side of family fiction will find something to like, but more straight-laced viewers are likely to find it too far afield.

The Witches is cartoonish and distorted, even by the standards of family films. The movie bends over backwards to make the witches look as vile as possible, while the mouse transformations are played up to a similar degree. Tonally, The Witches is just as off-kilter. Macabre subject matter, a flippant approach to a high-stakes story, and seemingly arbitrary rules to the universe all contribute to the impression of a fever dream.

Still, The Witches holds a specific sort of appeal that will attract some viewers. The story is largely true to the content of the book, for better or for worse, and it has the same flavor of adult-tinged family adventure as movies like Time Bandits or The Pagemaster. But even with this niche, the unusual story structure, relatively undeveloped characters, and general strangeness of the premise are a large ask.

How much you get out of The Witches will come heavily down to taste. Fans of the wilder side of Roald Dahl and the riskier kids’ films of the 80s and 90s may want to give it a shot just to try a unique adventure. But be aware that The Witches is not as nicely scoped, heartfelt, or robust as some of its competition, and skeptical viewers should approach with caution.

For a more balanced Roald Dahl adaptation, try Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda. For a similar style of fantasy adventure, try Time Bandits. For one with a neutral protagonist and a greater emphasis on animation, try The Pagemaster.

[6.9 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100944/). I give it a 5.5 for a messy story; your score will vary.

Today’s quick review: Underwater. Norah (Kristen Stewart), an engineer on the world’s deepest underwater drilling rig, becomes one of a handful of survivors when an earthquake destabilizes the facility. Along with Captain Lucien (Vincent Cassel), Paul (T.J. Miller), and half a dozen others, Norah must make her way across miles of damaged terrain to reach the few remaining escape pods.

Underwater is a dark sci-fi survival thriller starring Kristen Stewart. Trapped in a failing mining facility in the Mariana Trench, Norah and the other survivors realize the only way out is to venture even deeper down. Underwater captures the darkness and panic of one of the harshest locations on Earth. Fast-paced action and an engaging setup make it a tense watch from start to finish, at the cost of some setup and deliberation.

Underwater moves fast and never lets up for long. The action opens right away with a catastrophic hull breach, then settles into the business of rounding up survivors, locating diving equipment, and plotting a route to the escape pods, all on a strict time limit. Visually, Underwater does a great job with its setting, and seeing Norah and the others adapt to the horrors that await them is enough to carry the film.

The downside to Underwater is that it never gets the chance to ruminate on any of its ideas. The movie toys with the isolation and disorientation that come from being so far down, but it never explores them in depth. It introduces a sprawling deep sea facility but only visits it in passing as it is being destroyed. And though the movie shows glimpses of something stranger down in the depths, there are no real answers to be had.

Underwater is a solid pick for fans of dark sci-fi who enjoy flash and spectacle over depth and substance. Immediate action, varied threats, some jarring losses, and one or two worthwhile twists make Underwater an engaging experience for those interested in raw thrills. However, the movie is not as careful or as well-scripted as some of its competition, making it worse fit for those looking for a dark mystery to explore.

For a cleaner, more engineering-focused tale of survival in an inhospitable environment, check out Gravity or The Martian. For survival film about a brush with a hostile lifeform, try Alien, Life, or Pandorum. For a more plot-focused sci-fi movie about overcoming extreme conditions, try Sunshine. For a much more surreal, much more visceral sci-fi horror movie, check out Annihilation.

[5.8 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5774060/). I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for solid thrills with minimal plot to back them up.

Today’s quick review: Till Death. To rekindle their cooling marriage, Emma (Megan Fox) lets her husband Mark (Eoin Macken) take her to their lakehouse for a romantic getaway. But Mark has a sadistic surprise for her. In the morning, Emma wakes to find that Mark has handcuffed himself to her and shot himself in the head. Trapped in a remote cabin with no gas, no tools, and a heavy corpse, Emma must use her wits to get back to civilization alive.

Till Death is a crime thriller about a woman caught up in an elaborate revenge scheme by her controlling husband. With his dying act Mark takes a credible stab at ruining Emma’s life, showing spiteful ingenuity in the way he anticipates and cuts off every possible response she has to being chained to his corpse. The result is a minimalistic thriller with tense conflict and some creative ideas, but ultimately only niche appeal.

Till Death is worth watching for Mark’s trap and Emma’s reaction to it. Mark takes every pain to make Emma’s predicament inescapble, doing everything from disabling her cell phone to removing every sharp or heavy object in the house. But in spite of the tall odds, Emma never gives up. Seeing her meticulously look for a way out gives the movie a nice sense of tension, while seeing the twisted ruins of their relationship is a bonus.

Till Death’s main shortcoming is that it is loosely structured. Anyone drawn to the kind of careful planning shown by Mark will be disappointed at how much of what happens is ultimately out of his hands. He sets up every part of the trap, one way or another, but past a relatively early point in the movie, Emma and one or two other parties are driving the action. This doesn’t diminish the tension, but it does shift the focus some.

How much you get out of Till Death will depend heavily on taste. The movie has fragments of several different powerful ideas, including the failure of a marriage through the delusional eyes of a manipulative husband, a posthumous trap, and a woman left to fend for herself at a cabin in the cold. But none of these are enough to carry the others, meaning that to appreciate Till Death, you will need a taste for its particular ideas.

Give it a shot when you’re in the mood for a minimalistic thriller with a nice mixture of spite and perseverance. Skip it if you are looking for more wholesome thrills. For a simpler thriller about a woman trapped in a cabin, try Hush.

[5.8 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11804152/). I give it a 6.5 for a darkly interesting puzzle.

Today’s quick review: Hush. Maddie Young (Kate Siegel), a deaf writer living on her own in the woods, gets caught in a fight for her life when a masked killer (John Gallagher Jr.) traps her inside her house. With every escape route cut off, Maddie must find a way to defend herself before the killer can break in and finish her off.

Hush is a survival thriller about a woman trying to defend herself against a masked attacker. As the killer patrols the outside of her cabin, taunting her, Maddie looks for a distraction that will give her the upper hand. Hush has a minimalistic premise that it puts to excellent effect. The immediacy of the threat, the resourcefulness Maddie shows, and a nicely despicable villain make it a worthwhile pick.

Hush does a good job of handling its conflict. The killer is stronger, better armed, and can hear, but Maddy has the quick thinking and nerves to keep herself alive. Seeing them test each other through locked doors, closed windows, roofs, and crawlspaces gives the movie some clear appeal for anyone who likes dark cat-and-mouse games. The battle also has a nice give-and-take, with neither side getting off too easy.

Hush is a movie that has a straightforward premise and executes its well. Hush will not have much to offer anyone looking for deep plots, or even out-and-out horror. But for effective tension and a well-scoped story, it has exactly what it needs. For another deadly hunt in the woods, try Killing Season. For a psychological thriller about a writer in the woods, try Secret Window.

[6.6 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5022702/). I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for tidy thrills.

Today’s quick review: Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two. As the months drag on with no clues to the identity of the Holiday Killer, Batman (Jensen Ackles) and Captain James Gordon (Billy Burke) continue to monitor Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver) and his inner circle. Meanwhile, district attorney Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel) begins to buckle under the public pressure of the case and speculation that he is the killer.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two is an animated superhero crime drama. Part Two spins out the plot threads introduced in Part One. Every new holiday, the killer takes out another target linked to Falcone, with Batman powerless to stop him. Part Two features the same lavish animation as the first, as well as more action and a wider rogues’ gallery. Still, the unruly progression of the investigation will not satisfy everyone.

The sharpest new plot element in Part Two is Harvey Dent’s descent into madness. After circumstantial evidence paints him as the Holiday Killer, he finds himself at the center of a media firestorm that pushes him to his breaking point. Dent’s growing instability shakes up the investigation nicely and adds an urgency the situation as his cat-and-mouse game with Falcone comes to a head.

Even so, the mystery itself is not as compelling as it could have been. Once again, the movie stalls for time, allowing the Holiday Killer to get away with murder without leaving any useful clues. By the time the movie fills the audience in, Dent has taken center stage, almost making the killer’s identity a moot point. The story also indulges in a few subplots without a clear purpose, seemingly just to keep the characters busy.

How much you get out of Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two will vary. Between its gorgeous art, excellent setting, and kinetic action, the movie shows off some of the best features of the superhero genre. However, the nature of its mystery puts some bizarre constraints on its story, forcing Batman into a passive role and keeping the investigation from gathering much steam. Check it out if you’re a fan of the character.

[7.2 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14402926/). I give it a 7.0 for solid action and a decent plot.

Today’s quick review: Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One. The murder of a police informant prompts Batman (Jensen Ackles), district attorney Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel), and Captain James Gordon (Billy Burke) to redouble their investigation into Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver), Gotham’s most powerful crime boss. But as the killings continue, the men realize that Falcone himself may be the primary target.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One is an animated superhero crime drama based on the comic of the same name. The Long Halloween follows Batman and his allies as they investigate a series of killings tied to holidays, all of them aimed at members of Carmine Falcone’s inner circle. The result is a convoluted mystery that spans the breadth of Gotham’s criminal underworld and pushes Batman’s deductive skills to their limits.

The Long Halloween, Part One’s most distinctive feature is its art style. The movie goes the extra mile to give Gotham a unique look. Detailed backgrounds, imposing architecture, and heavy 30s influences in the costumes and props all combine to form one of the richer incarnations of the moody metropolis. The atmosphere is a perfect fit for the mystery, and it captures the investigative side of Batman’s character quite well.

The one major drawback is that The Long Halloween, Part One is an excessively slow boil. The story takes a long time getting started, and the gimmick of holiday-themed killings stretches out the important developments even farther. The emphasis on organized crime means that there is less action than most superhero movies, and the handful of supervillain appearances are apparently just for show.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One is an artistically fascinating movie held back by a slow plot and a failure to use Batman to his full effect. If you are a fan of the character who enjoys more cerebral mysteries, The Long Halloween, Part One and its second part are well worth a watch. If you are mostly in it for the action, approach with caution.

For a live-action superhero movie that adapts some of the same plot points, try The Dark Knight. For an animated Batman movie with a similar emphasis on setting and atmosphere, try Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.

[7.3 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14324650/). I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for high artistry and a hit-or-miss story.