There’s little more that could be said about Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation that isn’t said in the first shot of the trailer below. One of the best shots of the year, and quite possibly all time. Like, I’ve gone back and watched it over five times while writing these opening sentences and I’ve laughed literally every time. Just thinking about it is enough to set me off giggling.
I don’t know exactly how it is where you are, but in the UK cinema isn’t generally a participatory sport. Outside of comedy or horror there’s very few acceptable reactions one is allowed to have. I’ve been to screenings with the director present where the audience were too British to have the courtesy to applaud. Sure, not all films are hits, but you’d think polite uncomfortable appreciation would be something that we’d mastered as a culture.
I read Walden first when I was a teenager and assumed that because it was written in this elaborate, if occasionally beautiful, way there must have been something insightful in there. You know, minimalism, simplicity, getting in touch with our roots. Society is square anyway, to hell with all the people who tell you what to do. This hermit knew how to live!
I remember a point in my life when I were sure of things. Then I remember a point where I weren’t sure of anything. Then I think I realised that in an atmosphere of uncertainty, I could choose my own truths and in the acknowledgement of those the world had the possibility to become a far stranger and more liberating place. Everything seems to be going to hell pretty just about everywhere, but in creating a meaning for myself outside of that I unmoor myself.
I write this review drinking a chilled glass of white wine at nine o’clock on a Tuesday evening because I am sure that this is the version of ‘best life’ that the characters of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again would want me to lead. It’s a pointless endeavour really, the only valid answer to the question ‘Is it good?’ is to shrug, let out an easygoing sigh and say with a carefree smile, ‘Who cares?’
Once it catches on fire, at the base of the titular skyscraper, a crowd forms. They are there at first to watch the calamity. Then, on a mission to save his family, trapped halfway up, above the blaze Dwayne Johnson busts through the police cordon, climbs a crane, and launches himself into the burning building. News helicopters chart his ascent.
You’ll probably have figured out the secret of The Secret of Marrowbone pretty early on in the film’s running time. I mean, there’s a few going on through the running time the plot basically revolves around a circling series of reveals, who knows what, and who’s hiding it from them is the source of all unfolding drama in this joint.
