The Wolfman (2010)

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I've been wanting to see The Wolfman ever since I saw the first trailer for it. At last, a beast that hasn't gone all Hollywood and twinkle-happy on me! I swear to you, I would have been arrested for dismantling the theater if at any point during the movie the Wolfman showed his true love that when he stepped into the moonlight, he was in reality made of polyester.

After reading that its release date had been postponed because of several production difficulties, I was worried that this movie was going to be an awful one. But then I realized that every movie lately has had the same potential to suck, and most of them lived up to that potential. In fact, I'd give anything to splice The Wolfman into Legion and let ol' Wolfy boy feast upon the entire cast. The people who paid to see Legion are owed at least that much.

I am happy to say that the makers of this movie did stick to the old school Wolfman story. Several vampire movies over the years have tried to change the rules when it comes to dealing with them. Crosses don't affect them, nor holy water. Same with garlic, although that was always kinda goofy to me anyway. "Oh no...garlic! My one spice weakness!" Sunblock was brought in to allow them into daylight. And of course, it's now reached the point that sunlight doesn't hurt them at all, it makes them... twinkle. Yawn. I know this tinkering allows studios to be lazier and on the rare occasion, more creative in their productions but some things should never be messed with.

The Wolfman didn't try to rewrite the rules at all: silver bullets and werewolves are still enemies. The full moon is still the leading cause of werewolfification. They are almost entirely merciless, even to loved ones and top Facebook friends. They like their meat rare and screaming, and they like it often. Most importantly, they can kiss a woman smack on the lips in their human form shortly after dining on a human pancreas during their werewolf state, and the woman doesn't mind a bit! I can't do that to a woman after dining on a box of Tic Tacs!!

Picking Benicio Del Toro as The Wolfman was a good decision, the man already resembles something unholy. He plays an actor, Lawrence Talbot, who obliges his sister-in-law's desire to come home and help locate his brother who has gone missing. Which is a way of saying his brother is now part of a steaming pile of werewolf dung. By the time he arrives, his brother's badly mangled body has been discovered and like all good, loyal brothers, Lawrence immediately falls in love with his widow, the lovely Emily Blunt. He also swears to find the beast or lunatic that killed his brother and two others.

As one may suspect in this situation, there are Gypsies involved and they are naturally blamed for all the goings-on. Have you ever seen a movie where bad things happen and the village people DON''T march into the Gypsy camp demanding to have their weights and birthdays guessed? Lawrence is already at the camp inquiring about his brother when the mob arrives. Then the finger pointing begins. Now if you know anything about Gypsy camps, you don't point fingers because they will take that opportunity to read your palms for an astronomical fee. During all this mass finger pointing/palm reading confusion, the werewolf shows up and begins turning the entire camp into it's own personal bowl of Kibbles n' Bits. Lawrence, in the act of saving a young boy, is of course bitten. Before he can properly reprimand the boy for biting him, the werewolf also bites him before fleeing. The bite inflicts Lawrence with the dreaded curse of the werewolf. Though the effects of the bite from the young boy remain unknown, I am sure that it at least resulted in some discomfort.

Hugo Weaving portrays Inspector Abberline from Scotland Yard, who shows up to investigate the massacre and a possible Neo sighting. Oddly (at least to me) he questions Lawrence about the possibility that he himself may have been the killer. I don't know anybody outside of Russell that can almost chew his own neck off AND simultaneously rip several people apart (Russ is very protective when it comes to me), but maybe Abberline has seen it more often in his line of work than I have as a restaurant manager.

Anthony Hopkins plays the father of the Talbot boys. He walks around in heavy forboding garments for most of the movie. Yes, clothing can be forboding, don't make me break out my prom photos! And people in heavy forboding clothing rarely have anything uplifting to say. My guess is, the heavy forbidding clothing makes them sad.

The rest of the movie, as one might suspect, focuses on Lawrence's transformation and the minor problems it causes (death), his relationship with his distant father, and his love for the newly single Ms. Blunt. Let me say this: while I enjoyed the movie quite a bit I will wait for it to hit the Wal Mart $5 bin before I buy it. It was a decent movie and I don't have anything against it, but there's nothing about it that makes me wanna watch it again any time soon. It was basically an old werewolf movie with lots of gore and better special effects. But it was also predictable (maybe they should have changed the rules like I suggested earlier). I even guessed the story's so-called twist (he's blind and on a mission from God) just from what was shown in the trailer.

Still, you've got to give it props for staying true to the werewolf myth, like I had hoped they would all along. Twilight could learn a thing or two from it, but unfortunately it's too tied up with courting tweenagers and my wrath. So I'll have to wait for the sequel, The Wolfman: An Inconvenient Tooth for my next monster fix.

Written by
The Infamous Mr. Wilson



Rule Britannia....
I'm excited about seeing this one. Everything involving Anthony Hopkins should be a joy to watch for me
Also, glad to hear that they did stick to the original Wolfman story
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Honestly it could have been better...

The Wolfman (2010)



Absolutely dreadful. I was expecting much better, and unfortunately what I thought would be the first great blockbuster of 2010 happened to be a complete dud. For a film that was put off and delayed so many times (more so than any other film in probably film history nonetheless) they certainly didn't do such a good job at making it worth the wait. The film's first hour dragged on way to much, and eventually when the action did occur I was pleased somewhat. Rick Baker's effects in the picture were effective and exciting and the scenes where Del Toro transformed were cool and all, and the look of 'The Wolfman' itself was extremely vintage in style to that of the classic 1941 film. That was basically the only plus. The acting wasn't all that great. The acting in a soap opera is done better. The set design in The Wolfman though is simply gorgeous.
If this film did come out on time and in 2009 when it was supposed to...I wonder if it would have been any better. Or worse for that matter. Shutter Island here I come.
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Absolutely dreadful? Well I guess so if you had your hopes up for a great movie. I kinda expected less than that because of the delays you mentioned, so I thought it was decent, not great by any means. Plus I just came off of a viewing of 'Legion', which would make any movie look better in comparison. Agree with you on Shutter Island though, it looks like it's gonna be a great one and I've read good things about it too.



I thought it was fun. It certainly was not an incredible piece of genius, a deeply emotional flick, or even all that scary, but it was great to see some werewolf action. I enjoyed it, probably because I hadn't expected it to be at all entertaining or satisfying - I mostly wanted to see Del Toro, Weaving, and Hopkins.

Also, wonderful review, Manic.



I'm excited about seeing this one. Everything involving Anthony Hopkins should be a joy to watch for me
Also, glad to hear that they did stick to the original Wolfman story
Most reviews of the film have been bad. One critic called Hopkins' performance "sombilistic." What I've seen of the TV ads tends to support this judgment.



^I personally didn't think he was bad. Actually, I rather liked his performance - his manner of speaking was always contradicting his actions. Maybe I just have a thing for contradiction, but I thought it was interesting.

No prob!



This film reminds me of a "director's cut" of an already touted movie. The story is amazing, the acting is decent, the directing is equally well done, but in the end all we get is one cool scene that we have not experinced before. It is almost like a Star Wars remake. It give us a new reason to watch an amazing story on the big screen, but all in all it is still the same fabel.
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The transitions and build-up were horrible. I really think they could have given the actors more "meat" in the roles. I also think it was over-scored. Horror movies seem to do well when they use the score in limited amounts and only to make a point.

I give it an "A" for effort. You can see my full review here: http://tinyurl.com/WolfieReview
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I havent seen it yet...the Howling will probably always be my all time favorite wolfman movie...why? Because they embraced it...their behavior more reflected human nature...humans like power...and other than the transformation, aren't much different than werewolves in nature...

I can't stand werewolf movies that depict a sobing, regretible, whoe is me, type of werewolf characters...
To me, if your a werewolf...run with it...

That being said...I'll check this one out when it come out on DVD...



Yeah, this isn't a 'must see at the theater' type movie. Waiting for the dvd release, definitely cheaper.



Great classic stuff here. In my mind Lon Chaney Jr. was always my favorite Wolfman. You really feel sorry for Lawrence Stewart Talbot being cursed with lycanthropy. In this set you get:
1) The Werewolf of London (1935)
2) The Wolfman (1941)
3) Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943) By the way is actually
a sequel to both The Wolfman (1941) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), continuity wise.
4) She-Wolf of London (1946)
5) a 45 minute documentary, Monster By Moonlight. Pretty much ahistory of Universal's Wolfman mixed with actual Werewolf lore.
6) Tom Weaver does commentary on a separate audio track of The Wolfman (1941). Extremely interesting P.O.V..
7) A neat peek at Van Helsing's homage to Universal's classic
Wolfman.
All in all I really enjoyed this set. I just can't wait until
Universal raids their Atomic Age Monster vaults like this. Til'
then, ENJOY.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
If you ever come back, please translate that into something resembling a real language. Thanks.
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