CinemaCynics.com

Blood, Guts, and Gore does not a monster movie make.  The people behind the remake of "The Wolfman" apparently don't agree.

The Players:  Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving

The Director: Joe Johnston

The Plot:  Having been summoned back to his ancestral home in England to help find his missing brother, Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) is bitten and cursed by a werewolf.  Now, when the full moon rises, Talbot is transformed into a blood-thirsty creature of the night that he is unable to control.

Thoughts:  I remember seeing the original Wolfman from 1941 starring Lon Cheny when I was about 8 years old.  That movie scared the crap out of me.  Now I'm older and a lot more jaded, but for some reason I was hoping for more out of this remake.  

It's been quite a few years since I've seen the original, but the basic plot is still there.  The film is set in the 1800's like the original, and the gypsie folk lore stuff is still there.  The man gets bitten by a werewolf and now he's cursed to turn into a wolfman whenever the moon is full.

The rest of the film is pretty original though.  Hopkins plays John Talbot, Lawrence's father, who is incredibly cold and distant to his son.  Emily Blunt plays Gwen, the fiancee of Lawrence's brother, who wrote him a letter begging him to come back home and help find his missing brother, who we find out about five minutes into the film is already dead.  Rounding out the cast is Hugo Weaving playing Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard who is sent to the small town to investigate the killings that have been happening. All of the actors do a fine job in their roles.  No one performance really stood out to me as being excellent, but no one was bad either.  Overall, the film's actors were good, but the acting was not what made this movie "only alright" in my eyes.

I'm the best dressed Wolfman in all of London

 There are a few things that made this movie just "ok": The first thing of note is that most of the "scares" come from just plain old blood and guts.  I was not expecting the level of graphic violence that was in this movie.  Normally that stuff doesn't really bother me, but in this case I just wasn't expecting it and it kind of turned me off.  Secondly, while the special effects of Del Toro transforming into the Wolfman were excellent, the Wolfman makeup was kind of laughable.  I'm not  sure if it was just me, but the Wolfman wasn't so much terrifying as he was goofy looking.  Like I said, maybe it's just me, but it came off kind of cheesy. Lastly, the story itself was kind of lacking.  Be forewarned, SPOILERS AHEAD: So, it tuns out that Lawrence's own father is the original werewolf that has been killing the people in the city, including his brother, and his mother 20 years before that, and who has now also given Lawrence the same curse as he has.  The whole thing comes to a head when Lawrence realizes this and sets out on a mission to kill his father.  The film climaxes with a battle between the two wolfmen, father and son.  I have mixed feelings about that.  It seemed kind of cool at first, but the longer I thought about it, the more it seemed kind of forced and way too convenient.

Dude, now I'm the best dressed Wolfman standing on top of a Gargoyle 

Now the movie wasn't all bad, there were things I did like about it.  I really liked that they kept it set in the 1800s because it made it feel more like a period piece meshed with a monster movie.  While I thought that the plot was lacking something, I did appreciate the character development, because in the original movie, you don't get to know the main character a whole lot before he becomes a monster, and therefore you don't really feel badly for him.  That was something i did take notice of that's very different in this film.  While Lawrence as the Wolfman is a monster, he's still the hero of the film because they provide him with a villain in his father.  Whereas in the original movie, he was the only monster and therefore was made the villain of the film, much like Dracula and the Frankenstein monster before him.  So that was a part of the whole "Daddy Wolfman" plot that I did like.  Also, the scenes where he was the Wolfman, while being gory, were pretty cool, but they were too few and far between.

Seriously, this is the worst movie poster ever.  The Wolfman isn't even in it.  This would be a good poster for a movie called "Scared Girl Behind A Tree", but not for this movie.

Overall, I've got to say I was disappointed.  I didn't dislike this movie, but I didn't like it a whole lot either.  It was "just alright" as I said before.  If you're really into blood and guts then you might get a kick out of this, but if you've got a weak stomach then I'd say to steer clear.

Catch It, Rent it, Skip It?

Wait for this one to come to DVD.  It's not worth the ten bucks, but it's worth a rental.