Robert Smigel

I found this movie incredibly disappointing. Despite my reservations, I actually really enjoyed the first two thirds. The characters are funny, but not stupid, and familiar, yet with their own quirks. Instead of the usual tale of an overbearing father shielding his daughter from the world (because he is not ready for her to grow up based on his own insecurities and fears), we have a father who is protecting his daughter because there are horrible dangers that she needs to understand fully before going out into the world. His quest is magnified slightly by desperation, fueled from the death of his wife (who was burned to death by humans), but his intentions are rational and good. Humans are scared of monsters, they will kill or hurt them because they fear and destroy what they don't understand. This message is old, but true and often is skimmed over in children's movies since the rise of anti-hero in media (i.e. Despicable Me, Wreck-it Ralph, both of which I love). This was refreshing in light of the recent romanticism of vampires (i.e. Twilight) and because it felt more honest. Where this film fell apart, was the end where magically all the humans love the monsters after a 60 second interaction. There was a great opportunity for a modern discussion of race and racism for children. When the one human is introduced and proves to be a good guy, there was a sort of "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner?" moment of the vampire father trying to accept that his daughter is in love with a human. But with the fear of other "bad" humans still out there, it appeared as though they were going to address the idea of race not being the main factor, but human nature. That just because they are "good" vampires, doesn't mean all vampires are good people and just because some humans are good, doesn't mean all humans are. That race doesn't determine personality. And also the fact that racism is still present in our society as much as people try to pretend it has been solved. This could have been shown with some of the humans still turning on the monsters and being scared, making the comment that racism is based on ignorance and fear of something they don't understand.… (more)