The Wolfman: A Howling Bad Time

Now I haven’t seen the original 1941 version of “The Wolfman”, however I would be willing to bet it was better than this remake. Then again, don’t most originals trump their remakes?

The movie is set in England in 1891 and begins with – you guessed it – a werewolf attack. Turns out the victim was the brother of protagonist Lawrence Talbot, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro. Normally distanced from his family, news of his brother’s disappearance drives him home. News of his death drives him to find out who or what did it.

Lawrence takes a look at Ben’s body and finds a mysterious gold medallion that leads him to they gypsies and is otherwise insignificant. Though they linger on it for longer than needed. While visiting the gypsies, Lawrence himself is attacked and manages to escape with just a bite on his shoulder. The gypsies give the last bit of important information: only the one who loves him can release him.

*****Spoiler Alert!*****

Turns out the love of his life is his own brother’s fiance’ Gwen, played by Emily Blunt. Emily’s performance and character were pretty much forgettable. By the way, whether he’s dead or alive, going for your brother’s fiance’ is a no-no. You’d think a lesson in skipping stones across the water would be harmless but it’s quite intimate. But I guess they had to put the romance somewhere in the movie, right?

Forty-five minutes later we finally get the transformation we’ve been anticipating. Sadly it’s just a twitchy CGI change. Enter Hugo Weaving, the inspector, and his doubt of Lawrence’s monster story. He delivers probably my favorite line in the movie: “Rules are all that keep us from a dog eat dog world.” Get it? Dog eat dog? Because they’re…oh, nevermind.

A flashback of Lawrence and Ben (Simon Merrells) as young boys shows us Lawrence finding his mother’s body after another wolf attack. As luck would have it, Anthony Hopkins – his father, is to blame. Daddy’s a werewolf too? Who saw that one coming? Oh. Yeah. Pretty much everyone. He goes into a flashback or two – wait is that Gollum? Well, he is now AND he’s the one who turns out to have made daddy a were. (I bet the precious made him do it.) For fun, dad – in were form – decided to kill his wife and later on his son Ben. Gotta let the beast out, you know?

Lawrence soon finds himself in the mental asylum, yet again. They strap him to a chair and dip him into the icy cold water a few times and then decide to electrocute him, which seems to just trigger lots of delusions. After a trippy moment of hallucinations – there’s Gollum again – we get back to the plot.

The good ol’ doctor decides to prove to a room filled with men that Lawrence is just experiencing severe delusions. He is not, in fact, a werewolf nor is his father. And he continues to lecture ignoring the concern of the audience as Larry takes shape. Sorry, doc. You were wrong, and now you just led a room full of men to their untimely deaths. A little bit more gallivanting and killing, and some more Hugo Weaving, and we finally come to the not-so-climactic climax. Father and son share a fiery confrontation. No really, there’s fire. This was probably the best scene in the movie. The fight was pretty awesome and the father’s death was well done. On fire and decapitated? That’s just a bad day. But they’ll meet again shortly because Gwen manages to successfully kill Lawrence.

The movie is ultimately unimpressive with its twitchy transformations, predictable and otherwise boring plot and lack of emotions. The gore factor was present with a lot of unnecessary blood splatters and amputated body parts, so there is that. Now, with Hugo Weaving being bitten, should we expect a sequel? At least he’d be a badass werewolf…