Hotel Transylvania 4 is the fourth installment of the cheesy, fun, and hilarious kids series. The movies prior to this were all a good success, with kids and adults enjoying the humor and storyline. However, this movie is different in multiple ways.

First of all, just looking at the cast, we see a major change from the previous movies. Adam Sandler no longer is voicing Dracula, the protective, fun, loving vampire dad. This is the first of many problems with the movie. Without Sandler, the movie doesn’t flow. The humor goes from cheesy and clever to awkward and, in many instances, almost rude. Dracula does have a redemption moment in the end, but instead of bettering himself as a person, he completely changed his personality.

The personality change is evident in many of the characters. It felt like the directors and writers focused on one character trait for each of the characters. Johnny had little personality outside of his quirkiness, Mavis had little outside of her caring/overprotective side, and Dracula had little outside of his annoyance for Johnny. It made all of the characters very hard to like throughout the movie.

The humor goes from cheesy and clever to awkward and, in many instances, almost rude.The animation, however, was pleasant and up to par with the previous movies (until the end). It had the familiar vibrance and precision as before. In the end, however, it turned into a 2D cartoon style, which was random and pointless. Overall though, the animation was the one positive thing about the movie.

Hotel Transylvania 4 will stay proficient for younger children, but for older kids and adults, it lost the old charm that the rest of the franchise has. The jokes were forced, the characters bland, and overall the movie does not have the same effect as the earlier movies.