Film Reviews

The Wolfman

• Rating:
• Director: Joe Johnston.
• Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt.
• Details: US / 125 mins / (16).

An extremely messy preproduction that saw original helmer Mark Romanek quit the film weeks before cameras rolled may have zapped any chance The Wolfman had of being truly exceptional. But his replacement, Joe Johnston, deserves credit for still crafting a watchable gothic production, with some wonderfully absurd violence. You may feel like you've fallen asleep at points, as the first 25 minutes or so move at a glacial pace, while also failing to address certain issues that would've given the characters some much needed density. Had Andrew Kevin Walker's original screenplay been translated more faithfully by Romanek, who knows how good this could have been. Benico Del Toro is Englishman Lawrence Talbot, who returns from years in America to work as an actor on the London stage. When tragedy strikes and his brother is brutally murdered, he goes back to the family estate to see his father for the first time in years. Emily Blunt's grieving girlfriend is soon smitten with him, but after an attack from a hairy creature that has been scaring the shit out of the local villagers, Del Toro's Talbot begins a much more aggressive second puberty. Impressively grubby in its aesthetic, with bouts of violence and CGI that will delight horror fans, attaching the plot threads may prove a little more puzzling. Emily Blunt is the one really given the short end of the stick, as she has very little to do other than look mopey. Hopkins on the other hand has a blast with a character purposely saturated in ambiguity, spouting off countless monologues with a glee we haven’t seen from him in years. Del Toro is already well versed in playing someone with an underlining conflict; his twitches and glances adding to a character that could easily just have been played with straight up brooding. He may have been obvious casting, but he's still an unconventional leading man, and his quasi-alternative presence lends even more thespian weight to proceedings. Uneven, deeply flawed and somewhat of a missed opportunity for Universal to reignite the brilliance of monster classics past; The Wolfman is still an entertaining enough watch that gore hounds will thoroughly enjoy.

Review by Mike Sheridan