The first two
Hotel Transylvania movies have come off as contradictory features, a tug-of-war between the artistic ambitions of director Genndy Tartakovsky, an animation legend most well-known for his work on
The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory and
Samurai Jack, and the obligations of conventional 21st-century animated family movie filmmaking. In both of these films, one can clearly see Tatakovsky trying to push computer-animation in a more zany direction akin to the kind of wacky animation seen in the Flash hand-drawn animation he used on his earlier projects. While their computer-animation had flashes of being something special, their generic celebrity voice-over casts, contemporary music needle drops and rote gags felt like something you could find in any number of other animated films.
