Underwhelming Monster mash-up Monster Family (PG)
93mins ★★ 1⁄2
The fact that this movie is inspired by a theme-park ‘‘ride’’ at Britain’s Wookey Hole and released in cinemas at the same time as it debuted on satellite TV there, did not bode well.
However, there’s actually a lot to like about this family-friendly animated adventure. The English-language version of Holger Tappe’s (Animals United) movie benefits greatly from a surprisingly impressive vocal cast.
Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter‘s Lucius Malfoy) is a lovelorn Count Dracula, who sets his sights on the accidentprone Emma Wishbone (Emily Watson). She’s not in a happy place. Her bookstore is in decline, her son Max (Ethan Rouse) is having a hard time at school, daughter Fay (Jessica Brown Finlay) desperately wants to be a grown-up and husband Frank (Nick Frost) is overworked, underappreciated and extremely flatulent.
Depressed that it is almost two years since the Wishbone family did something together, Emma organises tickets to a dress-up Halloween party only for it all to go horribly wrong. ‘‘It’s as if there’s a curse on our whole family,’’ Emily wails. But she hasn’t figured on Dracula employing the services of the imprisoned enchantress Baba Yaga to do exactly that, to clear the way for her to be his bride.
Pratfalls, hijinks and stink clouds abound as the family race around the world trying to reverse the curse. Narrative logic leaps scupper story coherence, while the Tom Jones-loving Drac (whose portrayal feels more like Iron Man‘s Tony Stark or Ben Affleck’s Batman than the traditional Prince of Darkness) seems like he’s in a different movie to all the other characters.
Still, it provided diverting, undemanding fun for a rambunctious seven-year-old, if not entirely convincing his Dad. – James Croot