REVIEW: The Wolfman (2010)

The Wolfman

Rated: R

Runtime: 102 minutes

Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins

My Rating: 3 stars

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The Wolfman is as good as one could expect from a new take on an old tale. It's not as good as An American Werewolf in London. Like the 1981 film, this one will be most remembered for its transformation scene, which shines in an otherwise dim film.

Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) returns home to search for his missing brother. His brother's fiancee, Gwen (Emily Blunt), pleads for help despite Tablot's hatred for his father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins).

The last time he was home, he witnessed his father holding his dead mother. Talbot spent the time between then and when the movie begins in and out of psychiatric hospitals and under close watch by doctors. Upon his arrival, he learns of a much worse family fate.

While searching for his brother, a beast – some think is a bear, others a monster – is on the loose, killing animals and humans. Talbot hunts it down, but is bitten before he kills the animal.

You can guess where it goes from here, and its nowhere new.

If it weren't for the mass of previous werewolf movies, this film would be remarkable on its own. It's entertaining, engrossing and, at times, terrifying. But anyone who has seen An American Werewolf in London or any of the countless other films in the genre will likely be disappointed.

The Wolfman just isn't original and its plot tired and lazy. The holes within it – like why silver bullets need to be used to kill a werewolf – are never explained. Instead, the script assumes the audience's knowledge of werewolf culture, including that using silver bullets is the only way to kill a werewolf. It's never explained in the movie.

The highlights of the film include each transformation scene and many of the fights, aside from the film's climax, which felt too fake, even for a werewolf movie.

There just isn't enough emotion to The Wolfman. There is plenty to root against, but not enough to root for. We immediately hate the local police official, who wants to put the whole Talbot family in prison. But that's only because we like him slightly less than the Talbots.

Overall, it leaves the audience in a difficult spot with no clear good guy. The only remotely likable character is Gwen, but even she is somewhat despicable with her wooden actions. Blunt is not at fault, she didn't have much to work with. Gwen is supposed to be the key to this film. She brought Lawrence home. She made sure he and his father tried to reconcile. She appears at first to just want to find her husband. The problem is she doesn't try very hard.

So when you have a good vs. evil film like this with a bunch of evil people and one slightly less evil person, who do you root for? Personally, I rooted for the gore. Even that was weak.

The scares however, now they were good. Each kill made the audience squirm and the dark nature of films like this added to the tension.

In the end though it just isn't as good as it could have been. With all the material before it, The Wolfman feels a little rehashed. That said, it's highly entertaining, just not very deep or memorable. Three stars.