Theatrical Review: The Wolf Man

Let me start off by saying this: The Wolfman was not a bad movie… It was a terrible movie.

The Wolfman was directed by Joe Johnston who is also responsible for such films as Hidalgo and Jurassic Park III, and will soon be responsible for the Captain America film adaptation (which if he ruins, I will personally murder him with a dull pocket knife.) It stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins and the always awesome Hugo Weaving. Its a remake of of the slightly cheesy, yet surprisingly intense 1941 original. It scored a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is about right.

Roar!

The film starts off rather quickly, having a man gored by the beast right away. Soon, Del Toro’s character, Lawrence Talbot, is involved and that’s when it goes down hill. The cinematography at first is beautiful; gloom and despair surround the small village in a fog and darkness that you would expect to find a mythical, bloodthirsty monster. However, before long, you realize that the story sucks and you just stop caring about all the fog. I understand that making a monster seem real and frightening by todays standards is not an easy feat to pull off. We’ve been desensitized by the horrors that humans can commit to the point that nothing actually scares us anymore. The Wolfman does have a few moments that make you jump, but those moments are anticipated and only catch you off guard if you’re too busy yawning or picking your nose. Since CGI is now all the rage, they decided to incorporate as much as they could, even when the scene did not require anything computer generated. In the scene where Lawrence is bitten by the beast, he is speaking with some morons at a Gypsy camp when some of the local townsfolk decide to roll in and blame the recent attacks on the Gypsy’s trick bear… the bear that looks like a cartoon because its all CGI. Apparently a real bear is hard to come by in Hollywood. The film continues to venture into awfulness from then on. For most of the movie, Del Toro appears as if he just doesn’t give a crap, and possibly is loaded up on quaaludes. Hugo Weaving provides the only scripted comedy, Emily Blunt continues to be hot and British and Anthony Hopkins is, well, himself. Terrible dialogue is delivered so often, that when there is a moment you should be taking seriously, you end up snorting to hold in the giggles.

Spoiler: Do not continue to read if you still care enough to waste your money on this.

Anthony Hopkins, who plays as Lawrence’s Father, is the original wolfman who bit Lawrence at the beginning as well as tore half the townsfolk limb from bloody limb. Lawrence figures this out and takes a month to walk from London back to his village while everyone else take a day or two. He arrives just minuets before the full moon hits and they are able to have a quick, witless conversation before they both turn into wolfmen. This is where is goes from bad to freaking ridiculous. After they both turn, the budget for CG dropped considerably. It’s as if they wasted what they had left on the stupid bear in the Gypsy camp. However, despite the terrible digitalization of them both, they begin to duke it out… WWE style. It was all I could do not commentate loudly in the theater and yell out “Pile Driver!” and “From the top ropes!”. They brawled for a few minutes like Godzilla and King Kong before Lawrence wised up and threw his idiot dad into the fire. He then went Mortal Kombat on him and knocked his head clean off with one fell swipe of the paw. FINISHING MOVE! Oh, and the decapitated head morphed back into a CG, burned, Anthony Hopkins that chomped for a few seconds before finally stopping.

More stupid crap happens, including Hugo Weaving’s character getting bit by Del Toro’s wolfman and Del Toro escaping into the woods, while an ignorant Emily Blunt followed him. He attacks her and as he’s about to take a bite outta dat, she shoots him with a silver bullet. So much for your plan to save the beast, eh Emily? Del Toro barfs on his acting career one more time and performs a death scene that can only be paralleled by a 1920′s western.

And credits.

I was actually excited for this film some months back, back when Oscar season was beginning and I thought every film was incredible, a time before I remembered that January and February is when movies that someone took a dump on get released. I remember reading about it over 2 years ago, and thinking that this would be fantastic.

Scary Mofo

I loved the original one when I was a kid, it scared the crap out of me. Of course, when Abbot and Costello met the wolfman, I thought it was the greatest thing since bread. Not even sliced. Just bread in general.

I feel that the Rotten Tomatoes T-meter is accurate. 32% fits. It has a few elements that make you want to keep watching it, but the overall experience is just awful. However, if you want to just have fun and see some over the top de-limbing gore, then go for it.

Watch in theaters? No

Rent? Yes

Buy? No… Not unless you own a snuggie. Then you already have no taste and should probably be banished to an island with all the Twilight fans.