Hotel Transylvania 2 2015

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: Hotel Transylvania 2 is the greatest movie Adam Sandler and Kevin James have ever made together. I believe this is called "damning with faint praise." Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The jokes stink like the Mummy's armpits. Read more

Nick Schager, Variety: Its plot comes across as just a rickety skeleton designed to prop up Sandler and company's litany of cornball punchlines and gags, only a few of which cleverly play off of these characters' iconography Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: It's an episodic, energetically animated gag factory from the pen of Adam Sandler, and while it's the best screenplay to bear his name in years, it also warps some overfamiliar family-movie concerns until they become unavoidable in their ickiness. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Hotel Transylvania 2 is better than the original. Mind you, this is a low hurdle to clear. Read more

Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly: Many of the wisecracks are low-hanging fruit (like jokes about the rampant gentrification of the Transylvanian countryside), but most of them still land ... Read more

Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter: There's still no shortage of sight gags, but most of them work. Read more

Charles Solomon, Los Angeles Times: Genndy Tartakovsky is a talented director who knows how to telegraph what an animated character is thinking and doing and how to move a character in ways that suggest personality. He deserves a more interesting assignment. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Great movies like "ParaNorman" and "Frankenweenie" showed the laughs you could get out of funny fiends; "Hotel Transylvania 2" just digs up a few corny gags. Read more

Glenn Kenny, New York Times: The whole thing is amiable and colorful and surprisingly low on body-function gags. It may not kill you to take your kids. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: "Hotel Transylvania 2" is an unfortunate throwback to about 20 years ago, when animated movies were more widely accepted as cinematic babysitters. Read more

Calum Marsh, Globe and Mail: "Be yourself" proves the obvious takeaway from these exploits, this being a children's movie. I'm just not sure the message rang clear among the sounds of the children screaming. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: While the first Hotel Trans had humour for both younger and older audiences, this one will likely fall short in its appeal to adults, although there's plenty for the little monsters to enjoy. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Whereas the jokes in the Grown Ups series feel reactionary and bullying, the family-friendly Hotel Transylvania gags instead come off as clever and humane, even when they're making fun of helicopter moms and lawsuit-sensitive summer camps. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: So much attention has been paid to crafting a relentless string of in-jokes meant for ancient horror fans that the storyline limps from tired blood. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Yes, every joke in the film is low-hanging fruit, but not a single one is left unpicked. Read more

Sandie Angulo Chen, Washington Post: Tartakovsky hasn't created the sort of sequel that eclipses the original, but then again the original wasn't exactly "Toy Story" or "How to Train Your Dragon." Read more