THE WOLFMAN (2010)
**
Somewhere between the lush period opulence of 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the B-movie splatter of 1985’s Silver Bullet lies The Wolfman, director Joe Johnston’s big-budget update of Universal’s 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic. Starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt, The Wolfman raised eyebrows when its release was rescheduled several times, traditionally the sign of a troubled production - finally released over two years after its original release date, The Wolfman has curiously arrived on Valentine’s Day weekend, suggesting perhaps that there may be a love story somewhere amid the fur and carnage.
This is part of the immediate problem with The Wolfman - ostensibly there is a love story here, because Del Toro and Blunt make puppy faces and cry tears over each other. To say that their passion doesn’t make it off the screen is to be polite - their scenes of would-be tenderness come off as almost awkward, and a quiet exchange at the film’s climax is near-laughable in its ineffectiveness. Blunt acquits herself amid some choppy dialogue and massive plot holes; Hopkins is at his scene-stealing best, relishing his character’s complexity and classic castle-of-horrors surroundings, as does Hugo Weaving as a Scotland Yard detective hot on the trail of the beast.
Benicio Del Toro, who over the years has distinguished himself as one of modern cinema’s most reliable actors, is otherwise almost stunning in what feels like a complete refusal to connect to anyone, either on the screen or in the audience. In virtually every scene that is meant to be taken seriously - and sadly, there are far too many in this film - he carries a passionless face that seems to ask quietly, “What the hell am I doing in this movie?” The greatest feat a filmmaker or writer can pull of in a monster story - and what separates the great monster tales from the rest - is to make the audience sympathize for the monster. Especially in a movie like this, where so much time is spent on the creature’s innocent alter ego - his relationship with his father, his traumatic past, his fears, his love for his brother’s girl - all is pointless and downright dull if there is no connection to the hero, and these moments weigh this film down dramatically.
Still, buried in the wreckage lies the corpse of a fun horror film, evidenced pretty much every time Del Toro’s Lawrence Talbot has transformed into the werewolf and rips though the English countryside - these sequences are intense, suspenseful, and gruesomely violent, but they are tragically few and far between. One wonders if this is due to the particular writing team that scripted the film - Andrew Kevin Walker of Seven and Sleepy Hollow fame, and David Self of the notorious, critically-lambasted 1999 remake The Haunting. The Wolfman is almost a perfect blend of these - detailed period piece, gory procedural, and painfully uneven and ineffective remake. If not for the well-executed scares and hyper moments of blood-and-gut-letting, this film would be the true disaster its delayed release suggested.
- Logan Crow
February 12, 2010
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