Day 194: Hotel Transylvania

Dracula (Adam Sandler) has created a hotel that no human can find so that the monsters have a safe space to stay. He’s preparing for his daughter’s birthday and everything is going according to plan until a human shows up and falls in love with his daughter.

Apparently you only get one ‘zing’ moment in your life. ‘Zing’ is referring to the moment when you know you’re meant to be with this person. They are ‘the one’, essentially. I thought this idea of ‘the one’ was dying out now but it’s still alive and kicking in films. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps it’s just easier to make a love story sound epic if it’s the big one, rather than knowing that you’ll meet lots of people who could potentially be the one. I’m not sure if I believe that Johnny (Andy Samberg) is Mavis’ (Selena Gomez) ‘one’. She has been cooped up in the hotel for 118 years and the only interaction she’s had is with monsters who are much older than her and they all have dull (according to her) tastes. Along comes this young guy who tells interesting stories and she thinks he’s the one. But if someone else had wandered into the hotel and done the same thing, would she have thought they were the one? Or was it something particular to Johnny? I think she just wanted to escape and he represented the place she wanted to escape to. I could be wrong, who knows.

This was actually kind of enjoyable. I mean, it’s not exactly memorable or gripping but it’s an easy film to watch. It’s the classic story about an over protective father who has to come to terms with the fact that his daughter is growing up and will be living her own life. But with a monster twist.

6/10

Day 95: The Island

Ok, so the picture isn’t technically from the film but there were just too many pictures of Ewan McGregor and not enough of Scarlett Johansson to choose from. My rules.

Curiosity leads to a hell of a lot of explosions. When Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) has some questions about the facility where he lives, it leads him to discover that he and the other residents of the facility are clones who are being harvested for their organs. Pretty grim but he rallies like a champ and teams up with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) to escape and make people aware of what is going on.

There is so much running in this film. I mean, I was exhausted just watching them. And explosions all over the shop, but it is a Michael Bay film so that is expected. Some of the fighting scenes I could believe in, y’know, they might’ve happened. But then there’s the bit when Lincoln and Jordan are on the side of the building 70 floors up and they fall off and survive. Wouldn’t have happened. I know it’s a film about cloned people yaddayadda, but you’ve got to keep parts of it believable. Loved the fighting though. Pretty much all of my notes centre around how much of a badass Scarlett is. I’m not even sure what the notes refer to since all I wrote was “Oh my, such a badass” (and other variations along that line) but I’m sure the scenes were great.

I’m not really sure what would happen at the end. All the other clones escape the facility and it’s all pretty dramatic with them running about. But what happens next? Do they just chill with their originals? When the doctor was explaining, he said something about them being like children, so what would they do in the world? Although saying that, he did also say that they removed the sex instinct and that clearly didn’t work considering Lincoln and Jordan violate the proximity rules, if you know what I mean. I don’t know, would quite like to know what they did after they escaped. Probably had lots of sex.

6/10