The Wolfman

Review by Jason Donner

Never before have I seen a movie where I'm certain that the cast and crew did everything in their power to purposefully sabotage it.

As you can well imagine, this is the updated CGI-filled update of the classic Universal monster movie of close to the same name.  In this version, set in the 1800's, Benicio Del Toro's Lawrence Talbot returns home when his brother is murdered by a strange creature who eventually returns and snacks on his shoulder a little.  The next full moon, Larry Talbot finds himself howling at the moon, chasing prey, and licking himself inappropriately.

The Wolfman movie was a pain in the ass from the start of its production, going through several directors, writers, and musicians.  Actors came and went and came back and you can tell that all of this juggling did a number on the morale of this movie.  The finished project is aimless, soft-focused, and the actors just don't seem to give three craps about the lines coming out of their mouths.  Anthony Hopkins looks as though he's reading cue cards and Benicio Del Toro's character never seems to mind anything... not seeing the half-mutilated body of his brother, not getting attacked by a werewolf... not even turning into one.  I swear the man yawned during his transformation.

It's a huge disappointment.  I love werewolf movies and, ever since Twilight came along and turned them into short-short wearing shirtless morons, I've been waiting for an absolutely badass werewolf movie to come out and remind everyone of how awesome these things can be when their not trying to woo women with no personality.

Any hope that The Wolfman would stack up to any of the great werewolf films is pretty much wiped away in the first ten minutes when you realize this is a film no one cared about and it's a film that is going to take itself way more seriously than it has any right to.

This glum-bum of a movie is like a prolonged two hour frown from beginning to end.  There's no joy and, worst of all, there's no fun.  The closest thing to fun that this movie accomplishes is a werewolf attack on a gypsy caravan but it's short and sweet.  If you stick around hoping for more fun like that when the wolf gets to London, you wait a long time to be very disappointed.

Even though I will admit that the transformations are insane and well made, the creature itself is extremely silly looking and seems incapable of expressing even a smidgen of emotion except, of course, rage and, believe me, this is a rageful little puppy.  I'm no expert, but I've never seen a wild animal quite go out of its way this much to dish out gratuitous and bloody violence against people who weren't doing anything to it.  I mean, for goodness sakes, it crashes a bus in the middle of a chase, breaks into it, kills several screaming women and the whole time I'm watching this, I'm thinking... hey, wasn't this guy being chased?  Who edited this?

The Wolfman is clumsy and bumbling -- moronically slow-moving, and assembled by people whose professionalism appears to have vanished with the behind the scenes squabbling.