Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION

In Sony Pictures Animation's Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, join our favorite monster family as they embark on a vacation on a luxury monster cruise ship so Drac can take a summer vacation from providing everyone else's vacation at the hotel. It's smooth sailing for Drac's Pack as the monsters indulge in all of the shipboard fun the cruise has to offer, from monster volleyball to exotic excursions, and catching up on their moon tans. But the dream vacation takes a dangerous turn when Mavis realizes Drac has fallen for the human captain of the ship, Ericka, who holds a mysterious secret that threatens them all. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and written by Genndy Tartakovsky and Michael McCullers, the film is produced by Michelle Murdocca.

The film hits theaters this Friday, so check out what the critics are saying here:

Scott Mendelson, Forbes: "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is harmless and occasionally entertaining kid-friendly fun. My seven-year-old had a decent-enough time, and if you get dragged by your kid(s), you won't be too sorry. But it is a comedown from the first two movies. Like too many animated threequels of late, it lacks potent drama and substance, feeling less like a theatrical-worthy feature than a four-part episode of the TV show. It is light as a feather and more location-based than story-driven. If you want to see Drac and his family and friends go on a cruise, you'll find a few laughs. But there's not much BEYOND surface-level pleasures."

William Bibbiani, IGN: "Like the other Hotel Transylvania movies, the third installment is at its best when it's just a delivery system for the gags. A dance routine where Dracula and Blobby (a friendly version of The Blob) try to strut around the boat like they've got Saturday Night Fever is constantly interrupted by Ericka's murderous schemes, but her killing blows inevitably and accidentally always hit Blobby instead, who keeps bouncing back because he's basically just a ball of goo. The comic timing is superb, so it never stops being funny."

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: "The most inspired sequence in the film comes early on in a caffeinated prologue tracing the long-running Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote rivalry between Drac and the elder Van Helsing. From there, it pretty much coasts downhill. The screwball rom-com stuff works less well, and may leave younger members of the audience crinkling their noses with its talk of smart phone dating apps. But they'll likely snap back to attention during a "Macarena" dance number near the end that feels about a decade past its sell-by date."

Derek Smith, Slant: "The strength of this series lies almost entirely in its ensemble of voice actors, yet the new film is so singularly focused on Dracula's suddenly burgeoning love life that many of the cast members who provided the biggest laughs in the previous films, particularly Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kevin James, are often sidelined to make room for a belabored, downright treacly romance. Chris Parnell, who plays a half-man, half-fish character, offers up an amusing rendition of Macklemore's "Downtown" at one point, but all of the newcomers are mainly tasked with coasting on their recognizable voices."

Scott Tobias, Variety: "Director Genndy Tartakovsky, who has helmed all three "Hotel Transylvania" films, is a gifted animator with an affinity for elongated figures, sharp angles, and expressive features, and he likes to keep the gags coming at a BREATHLESS pace. But it's the screenplay for "Hotel Transylvania 3," which he wrote with veteran comedy scribe Michael McCullers ("The Boss Baby," "Baby Mama"), where he falls woefully short on inspiration. The A-plot hijinks of Drac and the Van Helsings are as inspired as the film gets, and that cat-and-mouse game fritters out by the halfway mark. The gallery of dire B-plots barely has anything to do with monsters at all: Mavis' son Dennis sneaks their giant dog on board in a trench coat, Frankenstein nurses a gambling problem, Wayne and his wife try to relax after dropping dozens of their rowdy pups at daycare, and Drac's ancient father (Mel Brooks) struts around in a skimpy mankini."

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