Based on the 1944 classic monster movie of the same name, director Joe Johnston (Jumanji) delivers a new take on the lycanthrope legend with The Wolfman (Universal Pictures). Featuring an impressive cast of Bencio Del Toro (Sin City), Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria), Hugo Weaving (V for Vendetta) and the living legend Sir Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal), along with a score by Danny Elfman and a budget of around $150 million, the film initially had great expectations.
After multiple delays left the film on the shelf for more than a year and a half (during which it was re-cut and rescored several times), The Wolfman was finally dumped into the President’s Day weekend frame. Some, this reviewer included, held on to some semblance of a hope that the finished product would be halfway decent, and, perhaps, result in the production of more quality horror films featuring movie monsters instead of the supernatural and slasher horror that currently dominates the market. This hope, unfortunately, was in vain.
The Wolfman takes place in Victorian-era England in a small town where many mysterious deaths have occurred over the past few years. The deaths always have two things in common: they are exceedingly brutal and always occur during a full moon. When Ben Talbot is the victim of one of these killings, his fiancée Gwen Conliffe (Blunt) sends a letter to his brother Lawrence (Del Toro), urging him to come back for the funeral.
Lawrence Talbot is a notable Shakespearean actor who has long since moved from rural England to America to escape his family roots, but his brother’s death causes him to reluctantly return to his place of birth. When he returns to the Talbot estate, he is reunited with his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Hopkins). Though the local villagers have their superstitions and theories, no one is certain who, or what, has caused the string of deaths. Gwen urges Lawrence to find out who killed Ben for her sake, and when Lawrence visits a gypsy camp outside of town he runs into the guilty party, a werewolf who subsequently attacks Lawrence, putting him under its curse.
Under the werewolf’s curse, Lawrence strives to find out who the original werewolf responsible for the killings is. He also tries to control himself while avoiding the watchful eye of Abberline (Weaving), an inspector from Scotland Yard who is suspicious of Lawrence. Meanwhile, Gwen grows closer to Lawrence and searches for a cure to Lawrence’s “condition.”
The Wolfman is uneven, poorly paced, full of plot holes and rarely makes sense. The film seems like it was intended to be epic in scale, but comes in at a running time of a mere 102 minutes. There are several points in the film where it seems obvious that scenes were cut or heavily edited, and the story jumps around, trying to fit as much action and story as it can with its runtime.
Even if the film were not cut to pieces, one cannot help but wonder if it would’ve been any better. The film’s dialogue is often cheesy and awkward. The score, which has remnants of Danny Elfman’s original score (Elfman’s score was thrown out for a score by Paul Haslinger, which was also scrapped), feels out of place on multiple occasions and fails to create suspense. Many of the films effects are impressive, including some gory wolfman kills and transformation sequences, but, at other times, the CGI is obvious and takes away from the scene (especially keep an eye out for a CGI bear!).
As for the acting performances, it seems that most of the cast is going through the motions.
Del Toro, who often delivers fantastic performances, seems to be doing what he can with the material, but he does not elevate it by any means. Blunt’s turn is wooden and feels inauthentic; she seems to be in the film merely as eye candy.
Only Weaving brings any conviction to his role. His efforts to make the movie something more than what it is are apparent, and he should be applauded for this.
Special mention should be made of Hopkins, once one of Hollywood’s premier actors.Hopkins has given truly wonderful performances in films such as The Silence of the Lambs, Titus and Amistad; here, however, Hopkins gives what may be the worst effort of his career. He is hammy and over-the-top, and sleepwalks through his role.
One must wonder how much he was paid to throw out his integrity.
The Wolfman, like the Twilight and Underworld films before it, does nothing to make the prospects of more werewolf films even remotely attractive.
