Tomorrow brings the long-awaited release of Hotel Transylvania, a film that has suffered from multiple directorial changes, a long developmental process, and sadly features the unwelcomed presence of the Friends of Sandler Brigade in its supporting cast. A different and more commercial take on the stop-motion classic Mad Monster Party, the big-budgeted film is expected to either be a camel or a fair family affair. Nobody is really expecting great things from it, especially since it comes from the highly hit-or-miss studio of Sony Pictures Animation and reunites one of the absolute worst acting duos of this summer from one of biggest flops of the year.
The bigger picture of the film, however, is what the future will hold for its director and main star. Genndy Tartakovsky and Adam Sandler are both currently suffering the dregs of their respective careers. They have failed badly in recent times, unless of course you are too blinded by your own fandom to see it clearly. If you unfortunately happen to be, let me explain the malaise surrounding the once popular kings of their medium.
Let's begin with the more tragic case and the most unknown to a lot of people: Genndy Tartakovsky will forever be adored among animation circles. He helped further revolutionize television animation during the late 1990's and early 2000's. First came Dexter's Laboratory, a show that remodeled the future of the fledging Cartoon Network channel. A change of pace from the all-retro-all-the-time marketing and copious dire helpings of Hanna-Barbera tripe like Sealab 2020 and Devlin, the show simply followed an Einstein-level little boy as he tries to advance science in his secret lab, all the while avoiding his destructive, careless older sister who loved to press buttons and ballet into danger. Several shows, and more important the careers of other aspiring animators, came from the wake of its success, most notably the very popular The Powerpuff Girls, created by his friend/professional rival Craig McCracken.
His next show took the cake, all with a flash of a sword. Samurai Jack, like Dexter, had a basic premise: A ronin samurai forcibly travels in time to the future by his demon antagonist, seeks to defeat him and return home. This elementary and open approach to plot left more time to work and overindulge on the design and style. Tartakovsky used split-screens, multiple angles, rich colors, border-less character designs, quick cuts, slow motion, everything but the kitchen sink. The majesty of the show was so breath-taking and original that some episodes were completely wordless, letting the furious, kid-appropriate but cool action and swordplay speak for itself. He earned several, well-deserved Emmys for the show and was about to embark on something more bigger and mainstream.
Personally picked by George Lucas, Tartakovsky helmed the acclaimed Star Wars: Clone Wars miniseries. The series takes place in between the far inferior live-action prequels of the Star Wars movie franchise and is often considered the only thing good to come from this awful period of films. Though I enjoy this series, especially once again showing Tartakovsky's excellent action skills, I consider this his point of no return. Though he won more Emmys for his work, the show is really just a cavalcade of non-stop action beats. When shown on television, each installment was broken up by opening and ending credits, giving a welcome breather before the next exciting one. Removing the credits and cutting them all together for the DVD release, however, makes it an unending spot-fest. Also, the character design looked really weird, which proved to be a fatal decision once applied to the Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and television series.
Following this success, Tartakovsky did the failed pilot for Korgoth of Barbaria, a grisly but fun Conan the Barbarian-like show deemed too expensive to produce. That was in 2006. Other than a few television commercials, the animation giant largely up and left, focusing on other outside projects. During this time, his former co-workers would become the new heavyweights of the animation medium, such as the returning McCracken (Foster's Home of Imaginary Friends) and Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy). Other than recurring rumors of fan dream projects like a Samurai Jack feature film, Tartakovsky was nowhere to be seen or heard from.
The came the harsh fall; In 2010, after a year of build up, Tartakovsky's newest creation hit Cartoon Network, the giant robot show Sym-Bionic Titan. It lasted only twenty episodes. Given his high pedigree and the large amount of online fans who were still championing him even with his long rest away from the industry, this was a total disaster. Though some insiders point to the fact that there was a lack of toyetic merchandise as the reason for the cancellation, the show was simply too old-fashioned and too creaky for the current generation of kid audiences. It was extremely based around the anime-aesthetic, a market that fell apart around the same time Tartakovsky was away. The action and animation was once again well crafted but the show suffered from stupid, generic protagonists: a brooding male jerk, a flighty and daft so-called "positive strong female character", and a robot that was incognito both as their parental guardian and fellow high school student who is hit upon by women of different ages.
Tartakovsky himself became Samurai Jack, a wandering lost soul of a different time period. While his expensive show bombed, new creator-driven and/or controlled shows flourished, most notably McCracken's long-time collaborator/wife Lauren Faust's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the offbeat duo of Adventure Time and Regular Show. Though it had good ratings, the action and sci-fi portion of Cartoon Network's audience had the Ben 10 franchise to satisfy themselves with. His final collaboration with the company that gave him his first break ended on a very sour note, lost to the ether except for some highly misguided online petitions and fans who have the rose-colored glasses glued on. The only thing of note he did before taking responsibilities over Hotel Transylvania was the animated prologue to last year's Priest, yet another example of his work being the only good thing in an awful product.
As for Adam Sandler, I pretty much already covered him but I still have enough ire to give him another life story. Before, during and after holding a writing position and an acting breakthrough as a feature player on Saturday Night Live, Sandler's first five films were certainly not comedy classics. Airheads is the most remembered by all, especially given its long run on Comedy Central, but his very first film Going Overboard is treasured for all the wrong reasons. Featuring a god-awful Photoshopped cover, the film is often featured in the Bottom 100 on IMDB since its inception. From 1995 to 98, Sandler had his golden period, despite the extremely mixed response to his films. I still highly enjoy Billy Madison, a goofy tale about a rich man-child who re-attends all twelve school grades for a bet. Though critics like Ebert and Siskel abhorred it, the film is low-brow fun and endlessly quotable. It also foreshadowed the flow of latter Sandler flicks, as the humor goes every which way but loose, from deliberate obnoxiousness to psycho-sexual surrealism. Happy Gilmore was next, forever to be remembered for its fist-fight between Sandler and game-show host Bob Barker. I do think it is still funny but I wasn't wowed by it, even as a young kid. It felt like Madison all over again, just replacing business companies with professional golf. It also started the trend of Sandler having annoying sentimentality in his features, usually punctuated by a cute kid or old bitty. His other 1996 release was Bulletproof, a movie I continue to loathe to this very day. The film is a failure of an action-comedy, completely unfunny and never exciting. 1998 would be his best year in film. The Wedding Singer went beyond its flair of 80's pop-culture to tell a very cute romantic comedy. The film was so popular, and continued to delight people, that it was later adapted into a Broadway musical. After doing a cameo role for Dirty Work, a very good cult classic, he did The Waterboy, which is his version of the point of no return. Again trashed by critics, I do still praise the whole goofiness of it all, even with the now-irksome Sandler-baby voice.
Then came Big Daddy. Boy, do I hate this movie. A bad sitcom, something that would have lasted two episodes on the air, blended with pure maudlin and saccharine, this yarn of another Sandler man-child taking care of an adopted boy drives myself up the wall. Audiences may have loved it but I wasn't in that pack, as it was the first of his films I avoided to see in theaters. Then came Little Nicky, which even those gullible audiences avoided like the plague. This film marked the actor's first major box office failure, a fiasco that stunted his popularity and appeal. All the while making bad movie decisions, he began to start making bad producing decisions, jump-starting Happy Madison Productions, a company basically designed to create feature films for his comedy comrades and long-time friends. Dubbed by myself as the Friends of Sandler Brigade, this motley crew consists of Rob Schneider, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Dana Carvey, Allen Covert, and Rob Schneider. Other and more talented performers like Kevin James and Steve Buscemi are also sadly a partner in crime for Sandler.
The 2000's were a plethora of ghastly Sandler films, though a few were able to shock and surprise in a good way. Frank Capra was spinning in his grave with 2002's Mr. Deeds and 2006's Click. 2003's Anger Management and the pointless remake of The Longest Yard in 2005 showed that Sandler could at least be just mediocre. The plot-hole filled and exasperating 50 First Dates was a terrible piece of audience-bait and Eight Crazy Nights was a sheer dumb animated flick designed to be a popular Hanukkah film of the holiday season. However, during all of this chaos, Sandler took the first steps toward drama. In a move that terrified movie news followers and the press, he was to star in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie called Punch-Drunk Love. When released, he received his best notices as an actor, even though audiences and viewers either were confused by it or derided the product as being unfunny. His next two drama performances were in 2004's Spanglish and 2007's Reign Over Me. Both films are exceedingly uneven, the former is truly atrocious and the latter is too Oscar-baity, but Sandler is commendable in his turns.
In 2009, he starred in Judd Apatow's Funny People, another critically acclaimed film that infuriated the general public again. A dramedy with an infamous Apatow-approved running time of two and half hours, the film was also a satire on the public and professional image of Sandler himself. Before doing this role, he did I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, and Bedtime Stories, another series of utter drivel, with the two former being heavily attacked for their racist and gay stereotypes. With this harsh stare at his own reflection captured on celluloid, Sandler's participation in Funny People looked like he finally would change his mannerisms and grow up as a performer. However, this was not the case; his next film was Grown Ups, yet another vehicle for himself and his best friends to chill out, pull cheap and easy laughs, sprinkle in some sweetness through smiling kids, and give everyone a smoking hot wife.
Karma finally had enough and starting knocking on Sandler's door. 2011 was the year where the Sandler touch was instant death. The first film was Just Go with It, a pale copy of Cactus Flower where the talented Goldie Hawn was replaced by the blank-staring Brooklyn Decker. It did well at the box office but the critics had a field day with it, surprisingly cost a lot for such a simple comedy, and the appeal began to fade rapidly. He then produced Zookeeper and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, both starring vehicles for friends Kevin James and Nick Swardson. They stunk up theaters and were sure to be featured on worst of the year lists, especially Bucky Larson, which was a massive failure, taking in barely any money, and achieved the rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Finally, there was Jack and Jill, a film I already covered and reviewed harshly. Despite strong attendance and the adoration of Armond White, the film also suffered later down the line, most definitely on April 1, 2012. On that day, the Razzies handed out every single award to the film, sweeping the entire ballot.
The next day of infamy for Sandler was June 15, 2012. His next big R-rated comedy That's My Boy, designed to entertain those who relished the Hangover films, bombed fast and hard. Fans either finally caught wise to his shenanigans or were heavily turned off by its jokes around statutory rape and incest, the former being hyped up in the green band trailer no less and the latter a plot twist. I still have not seen it, activately trying to at a drive-in, but it is not hard to tell that it's a bad, bad, bad, bad movie. Sandler's mojo is completely gone once again, this time with far deadly results than Little Nicky.
In conclusion, both Tartakovsky and Sandler have bad careers right now. Sandler has the better chance to rebound but the fact that his next feature is a sequel to Grown Ups and he has been mocked constantly for trying to produce a Candyland and Tonka Trucks film is doing him no favors. As for Tartakovsky, as stated earlier, I think that the fans will forever be on his side, give him an infinite pass, and remember the good ole days instead of his recent outputs. I do hope for the best for Hotel Transylvania but early accounts and reviews say that the film is less than moderate and has the signature of bad animated films by ending with everyone dancing. I guess I have to see it for myself, won't I?
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