Monster Family

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Alright, let's get positives out of the way because most of this review is going to be pretty negative. Some of the voice cast is pretty solid. Jason Isaacs is easily the best part of the movie as an animated Dracula. I'm always happy to see Nick Frost get work. The animation is pretty good too. If I had to sum up Monster Family in one word: it's annoying. Most of the characters are irritating (Baba Yaga stands out as the most obnoxious). A lot of the jokes are juvenile at best. Yeah, the jokes in this movie are almost all fart jokes, and they are never funny. Occasionally, a joke works. For example, Dracula's butler is named Renfield. This actually pretty clever, especially if you know the Dracula story. The story involves a family wearing monster costumes that are turned into their costumes by a witch. The reason for this is because Dracula has fallen in love with the mother, Emma (voiced by Emily Watson) despite having never actually met her, and does so after only talking to her on the phone one time. Honestly, if you cut Dracula out of the movie all together, then this actually might have the potential to be something enjoyable. As much as I honestly enjoy Isaacs as Dracula, I hate his whole I'm lonely at want someone to love me plot. It was honestly much better done in Hotel Transylvania 3. The main family has their moments where they can annoy me. However a lot of the supporting characters are just assholes, and they aren't even all that entertaining. There's no real sense of tension. There's a scene where the family worries about whether or not Emma will burn in the sun. 30 seconds (and a lame fart joke) later, we learn that she won't. If we know that famed vampire weaknesses don't really have any effect on her, and Dracula's in love with her (and the movie's main antagonist), then there's no real reason to fear for this character's safety. The other real reason this doesn't work is that, for intents and purposes, Emma is the movie's main protagonist. It doesn't work to build tension in a given moment, only to constantly undercut it at every turn. It doesn't take before the movie really starts to show its teeth. After a while, you just sort of sit there, wondering how long before it's over. Emily Watson's performance in the film is kind of all over the place. Sometimes, she seems like she's invested. Sometimes, she seems like she just wants a paycheck. Dracula has these three bats, and they're not entertaining at all. They just kind of feel like the minions' sloppy seconds. The biggest flaw that this movie easily suffers from is that the family all wants to be human again. That's fine enough. The problem is: Emma's the only one ever seems to take action most of the time. The plot also feels unbelievably basic, and a lot of this movie is just stitched together by random scenes. Overall, Monster Family has a lot working against it, and has very little working for it.

3 / 10