Videodrone New Release: Welcome to the 'Hotel Transylvania'

Adam Sandler reunites old friends (Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi) to fill out the mad monster party of the animated comedy "Hotel Transylvania" (Sony), a kids movie from the comedy star whose sense of humor has always tended toward the juvenile, not to say the sophomoric.

Sandler puts on his Lugosi accent to play Dracula, doting single father and proprietor of the monsters-only vacation paradise, a refuge from the human world, until a goofy world-traveling backpacker (voiced by Andy Samberg doing a killer Steve Zahn) stumbles into the castle and, through sheer exuberance and good-natured sweetness, catches the attentions of Drac's teenage daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez), a mere girl at 118 years young.

It all unfolds the way you would expect a Sandler film to play out, maybe a little sweeter than usual (Sandler is quite the lovingly overprotective father), but with none of the playfully macabre humor or sense of character of "ParaNorman" and "Frankenweenie." This is all bright sight gags and all the poop jokes and fart humor and kicks to the armor-protected crotch you've come to expect from a Sandler comedy. 

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