The classic monster movie remake “Wolfman,” is filled with action, gore and even some laughs. But it lacks the thrills and chills needed to keep an audience in suspense and unfortunately, the laughs are not intended to be part of the film.
The movie co-stars Benicio Del Toro as the “prodigal son” Lawrence Talbot, and Anthony Hopkins as his father, Sir John Talbot, both of whom fail to deliver.
When young Talbot learns that his brother has gone missing, he returns home to search for him but soon discovers that his brother has been murdered by a beast. The hunt is then on to find the monster responsible. But as it turns out, the problem is very close to home.
The silver story lining revolves around a fabled father and son that have become, of course, bitter opposites and clash in a bout of morals and beliefs which will inevitably lead to an end where only one can survive. This plot that has been played out many times over and should have been re-imagined in my opinion.
The beginning of the movie seemed to rush the story along, however, I didn’t feel cheated because the plot was very thin and didn’t require the audience to engage in any sort of role-enhancing character development to move along its premise.
What is tragic though is, the plague that ails this movie, the dialogue.
With cliché one-liners straight out of a Vin Diesel movie and bad delivery from Academy Award winning actors, I couldn’t help but laugh at the continuously ridiculous attempts to be sincere. And to make it worse, the character Frederick Abberline, played by Hugo Weaving of the “Matrix” movies, seemed to be purposely speaking his dialogue as if he were actually playing the role as Agent Smith. Was this intentional?
Add in some badly choreographed fight sequences stolen from “Planet of the Apes”, and a terrible love story with a woman who is supposedly in love with someone else, and you’ve got a movie that will leave you howling at the moon too.
As bad as it is, the film is not without its merits though.
The music in the film was performed well and added texture to the scenes as did the cinematography that captured the rustic village and foggy scenic countryside that one would expect in a backwoods Wolfman murder-mystery movie.
The make-up and special-effects transformations were also very detailed and entertaining and stayed true to the classic look of the Wolfman original and ultimately, became the only thing that held this bowl of hairy cheese together.
So, do the pros outweigh the cons? No. But the directing isn’t bad and there are some highlights to take away from the audio and visuals of this film.
I would recommend waiting for the DVD release if you’re the overly critical type, but if you like bad creature features with big budget backing like I do, then I would suggest watching this movie. Just know that I told you so.