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Hotel Transylvania 4 Movie Review

Hotel Transylvania 4 is a 2022 animated family comedy film directed by Derek Drymon. It is the last entry in this venerable franchise from Sony Animation.

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“Someday someone will choose you,

and well keep on choosing you everyday“

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Van Helsing’s mysterious new invention transforms Drac and his pals into humans, and Johnny into a monster. With their new mismatched bodies, Drac and the pack must find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent. First and foremost, I am getting really sick and tired of all these animated movies about body swapping. I find it a tired formula for this kind of movie and I want something else to be honest.

This entire premise did not work for me, though it did lead to a couple of very sweet sequences. The flick is endearing for sure as the ending is quite moving. But I missed seeing more of Drac and Adam Sandler in the role. I did feel his absence as the new voice is only okay at emulating his inflections. This movie moved away from him to the younger characters and I did not like that all that much.

Mavis is also very underutilized in this installment to the point that I would call her an afterthought. And that brings me to my next point and that is Johnny. Wow, is it easy to hate this dude or what? The movie is all about how Drac and others mistreat Johnny, but he is so frustratingly annoying and unlikable that it’s easy to find yourself hating on him too.

That is why the central conceit does not work as I could not care less for him and yet I was supposed to root for him to get the hotel. I just couldn’t honestly. Mavis and the hotel both deserve better. Still, there are some amusing enough moments when it comes to well executed slapstick here.

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Hotel Transylvania 4 also features stellar animation, some solid goofy action scenes and a couple of fun supporting characters. The movie needed more eerie horror elements, but at least it’s breezy and fun enough for children to enjoy, but just not for adults. It’s the weakest movie in the series in my opinion.