Movies like this always welcome really easy critical puns. Statements like "Wolfman bites off more than it can chew" or "When it comes to remakes, Wolfman isn't up to scratch", or "It's a dog-eat-dog world" (... oh wait, that one's actually in the movie) are abound in the reviews in this film, and I, fur one, will bite the (silver) bullet, and temper this pun-fuelled lunar-cy. I think I'm done now.
Remember those plot graphs you had to draw in Grade 9 English, leading up to the climax and "denoument" of the story? Looks a little something like this?
Well, The Wolfman looks a little more like this.
At first, The Wolfman creates a beautiful world, whose immediate violence tells you that this is not a movie that's going to fuck around. Within minutes, a man is ripped to shreds. After the intense introduction, we meet most of the players, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) receives a letter from Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), which tells him that his brother (her fiance) is missing. When he arrives, his father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) informs him that the brother was found dead in a ditch nearby.
Lawrence promises Gwen that he will get to the bottom of the situation. He overhears some of the locals discussing possible causes for the death, with some speculating that the gypsies were in on it. When one yokel suggests the theory that this is the same monster that attacked the village 20-odd years before, the others dismiss him, but the score, and Lawrence's rapt attention, tell us that the guy was on the right track. Lawrence decides to follow up on the gypsy idea, and pays a visit to their camp. There, under the light of the fullmoon, they are attacked by a mysterious animal, whose claws cut through human flesh like butter. At first, the brutality of the "animal"'s attacks illustrate the serious bodily threat that the wolf represents. Into the second half of the movie, in its efforts to keep this threat going, the violence, incredibly disappointingly, turns to campiness, crossing the line between originality and gimmickry. When someone gets a claw into the bottom of the mandible, pulling someone's jaw off, that's scary. When a cop gets pounced on, and their bobby cap pops in the air, that's mood-shattering slapstick.
And that's the general problem with this movie. Despite it's gorgeous appearance, and strong, compelling start, the movie hits its high point halfway through, before descending into contrivance-laden disappointment. Initially, there are hints that this is the direction things are going to go, but there are glimmerings of hope that it will be something more. For instance, when you stick an attractive, vulnerable woman in with your hero, chances are they are going to end up hooking up. When the woman in question is the hero's dead brother's fiance, you hope that the movie will take the high road and ignore the temptation. In the first half of the movie, we acknowledge the possible attraction, but, thanks to a scene where Lawrence stares carnivorously at Gwen's throat, we are able to brush it aside as an animalistic lust, rather than a step-incestuous forbidden love. By the end, we realize that this is actually supposed to be a case of Gwen being with the wrong brother in the first place, as her status as Lawrence's "true love" makes her the only one able to save him. If it sounds lame, and kind of disappointing, then I'm telling it right.
That's pretty much how the rest of the movie goes, with all of the expectation and tension taking super-conventional turns, and wrapping up in a way that's disappointing, leaving you thiking "well, how else could they have done it?" If there was some way to just watch the first hour of this movie, stopping after Lawrence's first transformation (oh yeah, he becomes a werewolf... I probably should have mentioned that), it would have been infinitely better. Unfortunately, the movie can't just stop, and instead, we watch all of the substance siphon out, leaving its still very pretty shell.
Rating: 3.0 stars
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