.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Where to start? Should I go into detail on how the film was completed two years ago and has been languishing on shelves and meticulously edited? Should I start with the history of The Wolfman and refer back to the Universal classics of the early 1950's? Maybe I should start by talking about the ingenious casting choice as the man who would don fur. Or maybe I should talk about the Joe Johnson, the director who stepped in to save the project and how he started out as an effects illustrator with Star Wars and worked himself through the ranks to directing hits such as Jumanji and Jurassic Park III.

Hells! Where to start?

The Wolfman in its 2010 form, circles around the life of Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) who returns home after he is notified that his brother has been killed. Lawrence is then reunited with his father John Talbot (Sir Anthony Hopkins) to which he was very much estranged.

One night, as Lawrence travels the foggy landscape looking for clues into his brother's death, he is bitten by a wolf-like creature. Upon the next full moon, Lawrence begins to turn. With incredible effects by Rick Baker, the transformation from man to beast is incredibly well done and is heightened by the Dolby 5.1 surround of the bones cracking into their new configuration.

As the Wolfman howls at the moon and rampages through the citizens of the town and city, a detective from Scotland Yard (played by The Matrix's Hugo Weaving) is hot on the trail and is quick to accuse the Talbot family as having a hand in the gruesome murders.

His relentless investigation, coupled with Lawrence's fight against the monster within him would make a good monster film. Unfortunately, the story is diluted with a story which reveals John Talbot to be more than his elderly exterior makes him out to be and a wasted character in Emily Blunt's widowed Gwen Conliffe. These later two stories take up more screen time than the Wolfman himself and neither are interesting or believable.

I had prayed for a good Wolfman movie. Instead, I was treated to a film that was on the shelf for two years and could have sat two more before being directly released on DVD for all the experience gave back to me.

The scare shots in The Wolfman are my first bone of contention. They are many and they usually come in pairs. Benicio looks into a mirror, and BOOM, there's the Wolfman. He looks away and then looks again and BOOM, there's the Wolfman. There are three scenes to which the scare shots are done twice in succession. It is a cheap mechanism that shows the film's unoriginal ideas.

Next on my list were the number of dream sequences and flashbacks. They neither forwarded the film nor the characters and were unnecessary to the advancement of plot. Did we really care that his Lawrence's mother died? I wish the Wolfman would have used his claws to have clipped these scenes onto the cutting room floor.

Spoiler Alert:

Most inexcusable is that there are more than one Wolfman in the film. This is made fairly evident early on and this then takes away from the singular terror and turns the movie into a wolf against wolf. The confrontation scene was too reminiscent of Mike Nichol's Wolf with Jack Nicholson and James Spader.

Although I appreciated the look of the film - the greys and the pale greens looked like classic ole England should. But everything else in the film seemed fake and no motivation of any of the characters could be readily explained.

I didn't so much hate The Wolfman as I hated the missed opportunity of The Wolfman. Van Helsing was an embarrassment and internet buzz regarding this flick would indicate that the environment was ripe. But with more scenes of Gwen and Lawrence skipping stones by the water than rip roaring action, The Wolfman misses its mark.

Then there is the wasted casting. Benicio should have been 'the' choice. Hell, he looks like a wolf without makeup. But director Johnson has Benicio chanelling his inner David Caruso, never really looking at his fellow actors and always staring at things with a turned head or on an angle. Sir Anthony Hopkins also does little to enhance an impressive resume. And Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving have very little to work with in terms of their characters growth.

But maybe the worst came at the film's conclusion. When Lawrence has his final scene and utters his final words, the theatre laughed. Laughing at a horror film is never an intention. And with chuckles still permeating the room, people began to walk out with the closing narrative still being addressed.

I can go another 20,000 full moons before seeing this again.