“Wolfman”
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self; inspired by the 1941 screenplay by Curt Siodmak; Directed by Joe Johnston; Stars Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt. Story: Upon his return to his ancestral homeland, an American man is bitten, and subsequently cursed by, a werewolf.
Seen February 12, 2010, by Lars Bastholm
LARS:
Werewolves have been extremely difficult to get right on film. The original “The Wolfman” from 1941 was fun because it was the first step at popularizing the ancient lycanthropy mythology about people turning into wolves at full moon. While the folklore was probably mostly a metaphor, once man was literally turned into wolf, we all fell in love with the idea. So from teen wolves to American ones running around on British moors, every decade has spat out a werewolf flick or two. But aside from the original and “An American Werewolf in London”, I can’t think of a single one that’s been very good. This latest edition to the canon doesn’t change that.
I think the challenge is that once you let a human id run amok in werewolf shape, we become silly animals, whose only task is to kill. That makes werewolves about as interesting as over-excited hippos. Compared to, say, the ever-popular vampire, whose bag of tricks include exaggerated versions of e.g. human charm and persuasive powers as well as bat action, the werewolf is a one-note monster. So you can play it straight and make it a tragedy about loss of control, or play it for laughs for the same reasons. I think the curse is that it looks so awesome, when a human changes into a wolf that that becomes what draws in a filmmaker. They should all read the graphic novel “Fables” to see what the writer Bill Winningham has done with The Big Bad Wolf to get an idea about how to mix animal and human in a much more engaging fashion than any werewolf movie has ever pulled off.
Yes, Benicio del Toro has it going for him that he looks sort of lupine even before Rick Baker’s team of make-up experts do their job. But does he have to play the part looking like he’d rather be anywhere else? At least Anthony Hopkins is hamming it up as the elder werewolf - yes, that was a spoiler, but if you don’t guess that within 10 minutes of the movie, I feel bad for you - to an extent that actually makes his scenes a little fun. Talk about chewing the scenery (sorry, I couldn’t help it). Emily Blunt is desperately looking for some way to portray the token female in the movie, but she has nothing to work with and she becomes ‘generic woman no 7’ with nothing to do, but help redeem the beast in the end.
The movie looks nowhere near as lush as the trailers had led me to believe. If it had, I’d almost have recommended it solely for that. There are a few effective shocks and some cool killings along the way, but director Joe Johnston, who came in and took over the movie at the 11th hour, can save the fatal flaccidity of the script, which was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who was the genius who wrote “Se7en”. Andrew… dude… what the hell happened???
