“The Wolfman” – A movie review

When you were little, you were afraid of the things that went bump in the night.  Could it be a ghost, coming to scare you?  Or could it be something far more sinister; a wolven creature of the night, come to snack on your innards?  The Wolfman is a cinematic venture, intended as a remake of the 1941 classic, into the story behind the werewolf, where nothing is quite what it seems.

Benicio del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, a man returning to his childhood home upon hearing of the death of his brother.  His father, played by Anthony Hopkins, is the distant sort, who exhibits a marked lack of concern over the nature of his elder son’s death, and shows even less concern over the fate of his second son.  Lawrence’s investigations lead him to cross paths with his brother’s widow, played by Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving as Detective Aberline.  Things go terribly awry when Lawrence is attacked by the werewolf terrorizing the countryside.  Nothing is ever quite the same again.

As time passes, however, I find myself saying, “This movie had such potential, but…”.  With such a star studded cast as this movie boasts, I would have thought, surely, this will be entertaining at the very least!  From the start, the movie’s atmosphere was only a few steps away from ‘Interview With The Vampire’.  A 1600s to 1700s feel, up to its nose in similar mystique, architecture and wardrobe.  Having seen images from the 1941 film, the werewolf in The Wolfman is very true to previous incarnations, which can be interpreted as either good or bad.  When a movie is remade, it usually involves some level of re-imagining the original.  This lack may appeal to older movie buffs, but not so much to younger movie goers.

As  far as the looks go, these should be background factors; enjoyable, but not the redeeming talking points.  The dialog was terribly dry and was even more dryly delivered.  I found I could not relate to the characters at all, other than cosmetic reasons.  Relationships and past events are nearly presented as facts to explain the dynamic between different characters.  When it comes to action, there is plenty of it, and it leaves little to the imagination.  Gore is gratuitous in this film, and that does not say ‘compelling’ or ‘interesting’ to me.  That says ‘we have a few extra thousand in the budget.’  When it comes to the story itself, what little story there is feels terribly predictable.

Don’t waste your money in seeing this film.  There was nothing remarkable or interesting about it overall, and you would more than likely be much better off in seeing the original.

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember.  I grew up attending writing camps and classes for writing fiction.  I spent time on the staff of Underage Thinking Magazine as a teenager, which taught me much about the practical application of what I had learned.  As for my own personal spiritual path, I have always seen Pallas Athena as my matron goddess.  Otherwise, I am an Animist and a shaman at heart.