Monday Movie: The Wolfman by @SatansPuppet

Universal are taking another stab at bringing their monster classics back to the big screen. The Wolfman, however, tries to put an end to the PG-13 trend; offering up a mediocre spattering of gore and an all-star cast.

Anthony Hopkins offers a cracking performance as the menacing father of Benicio Del Toro, who has the look of an old Universal creature-feature leading man; he ain’t pretty and therefore has the look of a someone who could actually be cursed. After all, how can someone be that cursed if they look so damn good? Thank God they didn’t try to cast Zac Efron.

Emily Blunt plays the love interest of the piece, who begs Del Toro to return home to help search for his missing brother, her betrothed. Little do they know that the search will result in Del Toro falling prey to a curse that has affected his bloodline for many years. Along the way, Blunt and Del Toro appear to fall for one another, but it’s never clear enough that their bond is sufficient to tame the beast. Neither can hold a candle to Hopkins, however, who pisses over every other performance in the film; even Hugo Weaving’s latest variation on Agent Smith.

Thankfully, the look of the Wolfman is faithful to the original films; which surprised me. Whilst the CGI transformation doesn’t  hold a torch to An American Werewolf In London’s, it benefits by imitating some aspects. Watch out for David Schofield in the pub, by the way: "Beware the Moon Lads…"

Overall, the film aims for period horror, but fails due to weak dialogue and a smattering of CGI that could have been recycled from the Hulk movie. On the other hand, I enjoyed it by-and-large, there are plenty of quick scares and the gore will make you smile from time to time; the beheading in the swamp was a particularly-welcome chuckle, but it wasn’t as awesome as I expected.

At least it didn’t feature Emily Blunt doing acrobatics, shooting silver amunition from uzis in bullet time. I would have enjoyed that too, but not as much as this attempt to bring old horror back to the big screen.



Here’s hoping it kicks these Twilight tweens into touch. Werewolves don’t look like poodles and vampires don’t sparkle in sunlight, these are the creatures that go bump in the night.

Today's post was formed from fragments of a disjointed rambling by Cliff, a professional idiot-offender. He describes himself as God's understudy, resident geek and all-round burden on society, and has an unhealthy interest in Melissa George - 

You can see the original post this review was edited down from, and some other random ramblings on his blog A Dog Ate My Wookie! or follow him on Twitter - @SatansPuppet