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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Hotel Transylvania 2 (Blu-ray) (2015)

Hotel Transylvania 2 (Blu-ray) (2015)

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Released 3-Mar-2016
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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Animation	Audio Commentary-with Director Genndy Tartakovsky Audio Commentary-with Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel and Allen Covert Additional Footage-Monster Lullaby Scary-Oke Sing Along with Dennisovitch! Featurette-Throw the Ultimate Monster Party! Deleted Scenes Featurette-Make the Scary and Silly Sounds of HT2 Featurette-The New Guys Featurette-How to Draw Your Favorite Characters Music Video-“I’m In Love With a Monster” by Fifth Harmony Featurette-Meet the New Characters - Animation Progressions Gallery-Character Sketch Gallery
Rating
Year Of Production	2015
Running Time	99:18
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Genndy Tartakovsky
Studio Distributor	SONY Pictures Universal Sony	Starring	Adam Sandler Andy Samberg Selena Gomez Kevin James Steve Buscemi David Spade Keegan-Michael Key Asher Blinkoff Fran Drescher Molly Shannon Mel Brooks
Case	Standard Blu-ray	Starring
RPI	$29.95	Music	Mark Mothersbaugh

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 Catalan Dolby Digital 5.1 Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1 Flemish Dolby Digital 5.1 French DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Italian DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 Spanish DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Arabic Dutch French Hindi Italian Polish Spanish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Sony phones used throughout
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Despite Adam Sandler’s shonky track record, Hotel Transylvania developed into an unexpected hit all the way back in 2012, and was a highly enjoyable animated endeavour to boot. A child-friendly adventure with enough entertainment to offer the adult demographic, the movie took many classic Universal horror characters - including Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, etc. - and turned them into homogenised protagonists, generating a rich comedic world ripe to further exploit in any sequels. Luckily, 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2 retains many of the qualities which made its predecessor such a treat, and it’s once again overseen by animation veteran Genndy Tartakovsky. Even though storytelling is scattershot, it’s an entertaining follow-up that will almost certainly please children, especially if the first Hotel Transylvania was to their liking.

    Soon after the events of the original film, human Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and vampire Mavis (Selena Gomez) get married, and the new bride finds herself pregnant, much to the excitement of her father, Dracula (Adam Sandler). However, the boy, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff), seems to favour his human side, much to the dismay of Dracula, who wants his grandson to follow in his footsteps and become a true bloodsucker. In addition, Dracula is further disheartened by the prospect of Jonathan and Mavis moving to California to raise Dennis as a regular human tyke. Approaching Dennis’ fifth birthday, Dracula persuades Jonathan to take Mavis on a trip to visit his parents (Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman), under the guise of giving the couple a break from the rigours of parenthood. Meanwhile, Dracula secretly enlists the help of his monster pals - Frankenstein’s Monster (Kevin James), werewolf Wayne (Steve Buscemi), invisible man Griffin (David Spade), mummy Murray (Keegan-Michael Key), and Blobby (Jonny Solomon) - to hopefully awaken Dennis’ vampire gene and show the boy the ways of monster life.

    Written by Sandler and Robert Smigel, Hotel Transylvania 2 is quick to introduce Dennis in the first act before rushing through the tyke’s first few years to reach his fifth birthday. Since the first flick was so small-scale and confined, this sequel is keen to leave the titular resort, briskly setting up the plot to allow for monkey (monster?) business outside the hotel’s walls. However, the script doesn’t quite know when to quit in terms of plot, leading to the third-act development involving the introduction of Dracula’s father, Vlad (the legendary Mel Brooks), that probably should have been saved for another sequel. Still, Hotel Transylvania 2 remains joyous through to the finish line, and though it’s not as poignant or as thoughtful as a typical Pixar feature, it does have a few things on its mind about the dangers of narrow-minded prejudice, and the importance of tolerance and acceptance. This is still a fluffy comedy by and large, but such subtext does provide a worthwhile lesson for the children in the audience.

    Sumptuously animated by the folks at Sony, Hotel Transylvania 2 has an ace up its sleeve in director Tartakovsky, who also worked on television shows like The Powerpuff Girls and Star Wars: Clone Wars. Tartakovsky has a nice eye and ear for comedy, gifting the production with plenty of amusing slapstick and sharp one-liners, preserving a light-hearted, goofy spirit which keeps the proceedings entertaining even when the storytelling is at its rockiest. With two parallel storylines (one concerning Mavis and Jonathan in California, another about Dracula and Dennis), the film stays fresh, allowing for a wider scope and more opportunities for amusing situations and hilarious jokes. Plus, the actors all commit to the material wonderfully, with Sandler again showing that he’s probably better-suited for animation than live-action at this point in his career. Further colour is provided by Brooks, who relishes the chance to voice a goofy vampire, while the likes of Samberg, James, Buscemi and Spade all hit their marks. Also notable are real-life married couple Offerman and Mullally as Jonathan’s parents - their trademark personalities are a perfect fit for their respective characters.

    Disappointingly, Hotel Transylvania 2 is loaded with product placement; the characters all use smartphones with a very prominent Sony logo, for instance, and there’s even some erroneous pop music which comes across as forced. Nevertheless, this is a fun, goofy, simplistic cartoon which goes down easily enough, and it compensates for its narrative shortcomings and other flaws by providing a steady stream of side-splitting gags. And considering the dirge that Sandler has headlined lately, the fact that it’s actually funny is a huge deal.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    As to be expected from an animated title, Hotel Transylvania 2 looks flawless on Blu-ray, with a pristine presentation clearly taken from the movie’s digital master. This AVC-encoded, 1080p high definition presentation is framed at the movie’s original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and it looks simply spectacular from top to bottom, featuring stunning clarity and sumptuous colours.

    Hotel Transylvania 2 does not feature the most detailed animation, with only basic textures on clothes and skin, and the transfer does an exceptional job of bringing out every possible detail. In addition, environments look rich and lush, while every hair is discernible on heads or faces in close-ups. It’s a crystal-clear image, on top of being razor-sharp and exceptionally defined, without any trace of aliasing, banding or any other digital artefacts. In addition, colour is stable, doing justice to the deliberate lighting choices discussed in the director’s audio commentary. Blacks look deep and inky, which gives the 2D image plenty of discernible depth.

    This is a superlative transfer which never disappoints in any department, and it’s hard to imagine an Ultra HD Blu-ray transfer offering any sort of substantial improvement. Subtitles are available in a few languages, and I found the English track to be free of issues.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

The main track on this Blu-ray is an excellent English DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio mix, while the disc also provides an array of both lossy and lossless options for other languages. This isn’t the type of disc that one would often perceive as being demo-worthy, but the lossless English track is terrific nevertheless, doing justice to the rich sound mix. Dialogue is consistently clear and given great prioritisation, while the playful song choices and original music sound wonderful.

There’s a nuanced soundscape here, from the subtle night-time atmospherics to panning as bats fly across the screen, and it all sounds marvellous. During the bigger set-pieces, there is rumbling and subwoofer activity for best effect. It’s a great track from the folks at Universal Sony.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

A few commentary tracks and some fluffy video extras. Nothing substantial.

Feature Commentary with Director Genndy Tartakovsky

The video extras on this disc are mostly geared towards the children, but this commentary is for the more film-savvy viewers interested in hearing about in-depth information pertaining to the making of the movie. Tartakovsky provides scene-specific anecdotes, breaking down as many scenes as possible to talk about different versions, testing, deleted jokes, and so on. It’s not the most involving track I’ve heard, but there is some nice stuff here.

Feature Commentary with Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel and Allen Covert

Despite the presence of Sandler, this is a fairly sedate track with scattered anecdotes about the movie. Not overly insightful.

Monster Lullaby Scary-Oke Sing Along with Dennisovitch! (HD; 3:57)

A few karaoke versions of monster-related songs. You can watch the songs individually, or via a “Play All” function. For the kids, nothing more. Here’s what we have:

Hush Little Monster (1:14)
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat (1:48)
Vlady Had a Little Drac (1:05)

Throw the Ultimate Monster Party! (HD; 5:45)

Another little supplement specifically for the children. This is an instructional video for how to throw a Hotel Transylvania-inspired party, with bat decorations, Frankenstein Punch, and Mini Kakie Cakes.

Deleted Scenes (HD; 17:53)

Here we have a fair amount of excised material which didn’t make the final edit, including two alternate openings. The majority of this stuff is presented in storyboard form to give you a rough idea of what the scene would have been like. It’s probably best that these were left out, though they aren’t terrible. These can be watched individually, or via a “Play All” function.

Hotel T Commercial (Alternate Opening) (1:54)
She’s Home! (Alternate Opening) (2:42)
Making the Hotel Safe (1:35)
The Crew Lands in Jail (3:04)
Raising the Dead (2:39)
Flashback to Drac's Camp (0:57)
Meet Dad (5:32)

Make the Scary and Silly Sounds of HT2 (HD; 6:24)

Another kid-friendly supplement, this featurette involves foley artist Robin Harlan showing us how many of the sound effects were achieved. Kids will undoubtedly get the most out of this, especially since Harlan encourages us to try making similar sounds.

The New Guys (HD; 3:32)

A fluffy, promotional featurette in which the crew discuss the design of the new characters. Mel Brooks also chimes in briefly. Again, kids will probably get the most out of this.

How to Draw Your Favorite Characters (HD; 5:04)

As the title suggests, this is an instructional video which shows you how to draw some of the characters from the movie. Again, this is for the kids.

“I’m In Love With a Monster” Music Video by Fifth Harmony (HD; 3:42)

Self-explanatory.

Meet the New Characters - Animation Progressions (HD; 7:17)

An extension of the “New Guys” featurette, this is a closer look at the design and animation of the new characters. This is fairly insightful, but clearly made for YouTube; it even ends with a “Subscribe” page. You couldn’t have cut that out, guys?

Character Sketch Gallery (HD)

A gallery of character sketches, which can be viewed as a slideshow. Beware, however, that I found this gallery impossible to navigate out of. I had to restart the disc from the beginning to get out of it. Big flaw on Sony’s part.

Previews (HD)

Trailers for The Angry Birds Movie and Open Season: Scared Silly.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

Our disc appears to be a direct port of the Region A release. Buy local.

Summary

I enjoyed the original Hotel Transylvania, and found myself having a great time with this sequel. The actors all have a great time, and I laughed frequently. That's just good enough.

This disc is perfectly respectable, featuring a flawless video/audio presentation and a strong selection of special features, fluffy though some of them may be. All things considered, this disc comes recommended.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	PlayStation 4, using HDMI output
Display	LG 42LW6500. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio Decoder	Built in to amplifier/receiver. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
Amplification	LG BH7520TW
Speakers	LG Tall Boy speakers, 5.1 set-up, 180W

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