Hotel Frankenorman

Hey everyone,

So, I’m sick at the moment. Just a cold I think but it’s hit me pretty hard. I even resorted to eating raw garlic to try to cure myself. Hasn’t worked so far.

Anyway, it meant that I missed out on some work last week :( and it also means that my motivation to work on any of my stories is really low. Which is problematic because I really really need to get on with rewriting my dissertation stories. Hopefully I’ll be better soon and then I can do just that.

In the meantime, with my motivation for actual work so low, I have found that my motivation for watching movies of dubious quality has risen significantly. And so I present to you a movie review of three movies released at approximately the same time last year: Hotel Transylvania, Frankenweenie and Paranorman.

Let’s start with my preconceptions: I thought that all three of these movies would suck really hard. I wasn’t entirely wrong. However, I did find some of them surprisingly not-bad-ish, so now I’ll go through them in the order I watched them and let you know my thoughts, in case you want to subject yourself to animated Halloween flicks too.

Interestingly, they all have 7/10 stars on IMDB. I disagree with these ratings.

I watched Hotel Transylvania with mum and Adamo, because Adamo picked it as the one that looked the least-worst out of the three. I think he was right about that. We sat down to watch the film expecting the worst and maybe it was those low expectations that lead me to the positive review that you’re about to read.

Hotel Transylvania certainly doesn’t fall into the realm of “good” films - it’s no Casablanca, no Back to the Future, no Wall-E. What it is, however, is hilarious.

It stars Adam Sandler as Dracula. I can’t stand Adam Sandler (except in Click, which I thought was a fantastic film) but he wasn’t too obnoxious in the role of Dracula. The film also featured Andy Samberg, of Lonely Island fame, as Jonathon, who is the human who stumbles across the titular hotel.

Watching the movie, I had guessed Miley Cyrus as the voice of Mavis, Dracula’s daughter. I was wrong: she was voiced by Selena Gomez. I’m not sure the difference is significant.

I think we were all surprised when the first joke of the film came within the first few minutes and actually managed to tickle our funnybones! What could have been a painfully bad viewing experience was, in the end, a laugh a minute.

I’m not saying that the film is sensible, logical, mature or anything that you’d expect from, for example, one of Pixar’s gems. But this is a predictable flick for kids and, taken as such, you could actually end up enjoying Hotel Transylvania, which I certainly did.

I give it 7.5 stars for lulziness.

Next up comes Frankenweenie. I expected good things from Frankenweenie because I quite like Tim Burton, who directed it. But... look I like him, but I’ve seen it all before, you know? And Frankenweenie is no exception.

It’s your everyday Frankenstein story, just in a kids-and-pets sort of context. I guess the story’s cute?

The only big-name actor in this one is Winona Ryder, but she plays a tiny role. I guess I’m surprised that it doesn’t have Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp in the main roles, but then again I guess it’s nice to have some different actors getting some work.

I don’t really have much to say about Frankenweenie to be honest. It looked like a Tim Burton film, it sounded like a Tim Burton film, but it just wasn’t as good as some of the Tim Burton films that came before it.

There were a few mildly amusing moments, such as the homages to Gremlins and Godzilla. But it wasn’t a laugh-a-minute like Hotel Transylvania.

The story had a cute-but-predictable ending.

There was nothing wrong with this film. There just wasn’t anything particularly great about it. Sorry, but it’s only getting 5 stars from me.

Finally, we come to Paranorman, which I watched really late at night and so maybe didn’t have the best reception of the film that I could have. It wasn’t as hilarious as Hotel Transylvania so I’ll be giving it a lower rating, but I think it was a lot better than Frankenweenie.

Paranorman is mostly small-time actors too, except for Anna Kendrick whose voice I did not recognise at all. Maybe I really do need to re-watch this one!

The story is really lovely. It’s about a boy who can see and talk to dead people, so he’s pretty alienated from society. And then there’s a witch’s curse and the dead rise from their graves... and then things get interesting. I’m not going to spoil any more for you because I actually found the plot surprising and I’d like you to experience it for yourself should you choose to watch this film.

It was a really different style of animation, too. Whereas Hotel Transylvania looked like the normal sort of animation we usually see and Frankenweenie was in black-and-white with a distinctly Tim Burton-ish style, Paranorman is something a bit unique which made it really intriguing to watch.

I guess the word I want to use to describe Paranorman is “charming.” It wasn’t hilarious, although it had its moments. But it was pretty cute and it kept me captivated even though I was super tired when watching it, so that’s a good sign.

I think I’ll give it 6.5 stars.

To summarise: I’m not saying any of these movies are good. In fact, if you have any sort of good taste in movies, you might want to adjust my star ratings down by like 2 points or so. I guess it depends how harsh you are at rating things.

For me, these movies were cute Halloween flicks and I enjoyed them, but I won’t be rushing back to watch them again.

I hope this was an interesting read, at least. And now, back to my actual work... maybe.

♥Nancy♬