So today I decided to go out of the house and have something like a weekend. I put a few Rita books on consignment at Zanadu (awesome comic shop that I would totally be going to more regularly if I was downtown), then went to see “Hotel Transylvania”.
This was really on a total whim. I’d seen a brief piece about it that mentioned that Genndy Tartakovsky was the director, and that he’d been really pushing the animators to replicate wild, cartoony distortions in 3D. I didn’t bother with reviews; I’d seen a preview of it a while back and said “huh, that looks like it might be fun”, and went on that.
And I am REALLY GLAD I DID, because it was a feast for the eyes. Everything moved like a lovingly drawn cartoon character instead of something realistic. The shapes in the designs were fun to look at, and my animator’s eyes picked up what looked like some REALLY INTERESTING single frames here and there. This was truly a 3d-rendered cartoon feature.
The story? Nothing astounding. But it didn’t ever make me feel stupid. There’s some nice reversals of cliché here and there. The climax has a few bits that felt a little off, and the song at the very end goes on about 30 seconds too long. But that is my sole critique of the film. Oh, and I really could’ve done without the fart joke in one of Frankenstein’s early scenes.
This film made me want to learn how 3D animation is done now. And that’s a damn hard thing to do to a 2D addict like myself. Kudos to Genndy and the Dreamworks crew.
Strongly recommended.