The Wolfman

Let’s be honest with ourselves. You’re not watching The Wolfman to see Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins at the top of their game. Admit it. You’re going to see it because there’s going to be a couple cool werewolf transformation scenes, some decent scares, and a few severed heads being swatted across the screen. For any other reason, you would leave the theater disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked this movie – but I’m supposed to like it. I love horror movies. Love them. No matter how cheesy and lame they are, I still get drawn to them like a moth to a flame. More often than not I wind up getting burned so badly I swear I’ll never take the bait again… but I always do.

The Wolfman opens ominously with a man searching the woods while holding a gun and stalking a beast that we know has to be a werewolf. The man playing this character isn’t Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, or Hugo Weaving, so it’s pretty obvious he’s a goner. Soon enough, he’s mauled by a werewolf and the opening credits roll.

The story then begins as acclaimed stage actor Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) returns home to his father’s estate in Blackmoor, England, at the request of his brother’s fiancée, the beautiful Ms. Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). As she explains via voice over during Lawrence’s trip home, she fears for the safety of his brother Ben. As it turns out, Ben Talbot is the doomed guy from the opening scene, so Lawrence returns to find his brother’s mangled body lying on a slab in the local butcher shop. Upon his return, Lawrence also reunites with his obviously estranged father, John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), who welcomes him home with coldness that can only come from long years spent apart… or can it?

After attending his brother’s funeral, Lawrence resolves to stay in Blackmoor until he has finds and kills the beast responsible for Ben’s death. It seems that Ben is only one of many victims who’ve been piling up lately, and always on nights when the moon is full. When Lawrence visits a local pub, he’s eyed warily as an outsider. The locals suspect that a group of gypsies is responsible for the recent murders, but one old man tells a tale of how 25 years in the past there happened to be a series of similar killings, and that a werewolf was responsible. Of course said werewolf was never seen again…until now, that is.

At this point Talbot goes to see the gypsies to see if they can provide him with some more information. Not surprisingly, an angry mob of townspeople arrive shortly thereafter to run the gypsies out of Blackmoor, but unfortunately for them – and well everyone in the gypsy camp – the werewolf visits at the same time, and it dismembers people for about a solid minute of fairly awesome screen time. During the werewolf attack Talbot is bitten by the beast, yet he is rescued and survives the attack. The werewolf flees, never to be seen again. Just kidding. The rampaging werewolf escapes, and if you make it more than halfway through the film without figuring out who the other werewolf is, then you have my condolences.

As folklore tells it, if you’ve been bitten by a werewolf and you survive the attack then you will become a werewolf yourself. Once Lawrence has been bitten, the movie is just marking time until he emerges as the titular creature—Wolfman. No matter what he does, he will become a werewolf whenever the moon becomes full. Therefore, from here on out the film is really an exercise in getting Lawrence from one full moon to the next. For those of you who came to watch werewolves eat people, fear not, because the time between full moons is condensed to as little screen time as possible. Months worth of time are crammed into montages interspersed with ham-fisted conversations and situations. A romance blossoms between Lawrence Talbot and Gwen Conliffe as she nurses him back to health. Lawrence must also confront the icy rift between he and his father, which was caused by his father committing him to mental hospital as a child after the death of his mother. We’re also introduced to a pesky inspector Abberline, who comes to Blackmoor to find the murderer and immediately suspects Lawrence is the culprit due to his history of mental instability. If this strikes you as odd because Lawrence arrived in Blackmoor after the murders had already begun, well then you’re not alone.

At this point the film’s special effects, werewolf mayhem, and ear-splitting fake scares become the real stars of the film. The last reel is an orgy of eye candy and action, werewolves disemboweling hapless bystander, and even a werewolf against werewolf grudge match. If this is what you came for, you’ll get your money’s worth more or less.

Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt; and though I’m not very familiar with the work of Ms. Blunt, I am fairly certain that all involved have done much better in other films. Del Toro is a magnificent actor, and he’s almost always the most interesting person on screen. In The Wolfman, he is understated to the point that he almost seems to be bored. He seems less like a cursed and conflicted man with no good reason on Earth to live, and more like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Lawrence Talbot comes off less like a man afraid of becoming a monster and more like someone who would be passed out on the couch hours before the full moon rose. Frankly, he seems sleepy.

Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor as well, but he chews scenery better than any living actor these days, and this role is no exception. Is there another actor out there who can play a bombastic, rich, eccentric old coot better than he can? Here as the emotionally distant John Talbot he plays a variation of this role again, a role he’s done so many times he can do it Benicio Del Toro’s sleep.

In the end, there’s not much to like or hate about this movie. The effects are decent, the action is adequate, and there are a few scenes of black humor mixed within the mayhem. In the end, love story or no love story, good plot or bad plot, it’s a movie about a guy who turns into a werewolf and tears people limb from limb.

The Wolfman • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 • Running Time: 119 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for bloody horror violence and gore. • Distributed by Universal Pictures