Hotel Transilvânia 2

The onslaught [of gags] isn't painful, but neither does it do much to distract from the ho-hum story.

"Hotel Transylvania 2" is an unfortunate throwback to about 20 years ago, when animated movies were more widely accepted as cinematic babysitters.

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."

This subpar sequel barely comes close to being as amusing as any run-of-the-mill "Munsters" TV episode.

When you're looking for silly fun with a hug at the end, that's just fine.

Yes, every joke in the film is low-hanging fruit, but not a single one is left unpicked.

The whole thing is amiable and colorful and surprisingly low on body-function gags. It may not kill you to take your kids.

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.

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.

It risks offense by putting a typically Adam Sandler-ian twist on a tired familial trope, though such risks can often be the only thing enlivening forced franchise installments like this one.

There's still no shortage of sight gags, but most of them work.

It's a cute enough diversion, but it doesn't really amount to much more than Saturday morning cartoons.

In a statement I don't make very often, this Adam Sandler film is a great, harmless option for your children in this spooky season.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is better than the original. Mind you, this is a low hurdle to clear.

The jokes stink like the Mummy's armpits.

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.

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

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."

Many of the wisecracks are low-hanging fruit (like jokes about the rampant gentrification of the Transylvanian countryside), but most of them still land ...

Gloriously wacky and always with a laugh around the corner, Hotel Transylvania 2 is fun, fast and a joy for both kids and adults alike.