Film Review: The Wolfman (2010)
The Wolfman (2010)
Studio: Universal
Director: Joe Johnston
Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving
Review by: Ben Bussey
Consider this review a follow-up. Dustin caught a rough cut screening of this back in October (read his review), and remarked that “seventy years later, Wolfman still has nards.” Naturally I give kudos to any write-up that invokes The Monster Squad. Otherwise, I regret that I must paint a less rosy picture than my esteemed peer. Nards it may have, and big sweaty hairy ones at that; but they’re not packing the requisite salty semen. They may well be firing blanks, in fact.
Lest this metaphor gets out of hand, I’ll put it simply: there’s something sorely lacking in The Wolfman. The right elements for a really good movie are there, yet it just doesn’t gel. It’s been known from the get-go, with Mark Romanek’s 11th hour exit and his hasty replacement by the workmanlike Joe Johnston, that this was a troubled production, and sad to say it really shows through in the end product; a film which never seems to know whether it’s coming or going.
The plot is, at first, compelling enough: reminscent of the 1941 original only insofar as it features a man named Laurence Talbot returning to his English country manor home (only, unlike with Chaney Jr., with an explanation provided for his American accent), this time around Laurence is a famous Shakespearean actor called home by his brother’s fiance Gwen (Blunt) when the elder Talbot child suddenly disappears, only to learn on arrival from his curiously emotionless father (Hopkins) that his brother has been found dead. Not long thereafter, Laurence meets and is clearly enchanted by Gwen, and promises her he will not rest until the enigma of his brother’s death is solved. From there it’s scarcely a hop, skip and jump to a fateful full moon attack that leaves a gypsy camp looking like an outtake from Riki-Oh, and Laurence with a sizeable chunk missing from his neck; not quite enough to finish him off, but just enough to put a bit of the beast in him.
If it seems like I’m summing things up a bit quickly there, that’s nothing compared to the way the movie does it. Things rattle by at an astonishing speed, barely giving you time to soak everything up. This is a real shame, as there’s plenty here we could stand more time to savour; firstly, the marvelous location settings of the rustic village and in particular, the wonderfully creepy and dilapidated Talbot Hall; and secondly, of course, the performances. It’s great to see two such notable actors as Del Toro and Hopkins sharing the screen, and kind of surprising how well they convince as father and son. Neither actor goes the obvious route, both admirably underplaying without straining for total naturalism. Blunt also underplays, though sadly to less effect, showing up the lack of character she has been allocated. However, it is nice to see Hugo Weaving, an actor sadly underutilised, whose turn as Inspector Abberline carries faint echoes of his previous roles as V and Agent Smith without ever feeling like a repitition.
But when considering Weaving as Abberline, a question arises therein. Quite why this obviously fictitious tale of lycanthropy in Victorian England makes use of a real historical figure is never sufficiently justified, other than to serve as a reminder of the time period (Dustin mentioned the Ripper investigation was only mentioned momentarily in the rough cut, and this has not changed). And once we’ve asked ourselves that question, naturally more questions will arise, such as why Laurence Talbot has been made a famous actor when it has little to no bearing on proceedings, and why he is given a backstory which saw him spend time in a mental institution when there is never any question whatsoever that he is indeed a werewolf and not merely a lunatic. This, perhaps, is the key problem: as much as the movie might aim for an air of the mysterious, there’s never any mystery whatsoever, and this includes (as, again, Dustin said) the identity of the original wolf. Allusions to insanity on Laurence’s part serve no purpose other than to pad things out, a surreal nightmare sequence being a particular sore thumb.
My last main complaint may seem a rather strange one given the nature of this site, BUT… the gore. This may seem hard to believe, but I think it’s simply too much. Guts spill, spines and ribcages are exposed, heads and limbs fly, and mouthfuls resembling raw steak are routinely bitten off. In short, it just gets absurd very quickly, and feels utterly incongruous to the otherwise somewhat old-fashioned, sombre, brooding atmosphere the movie goes for (as indicated by Rick Baker’s admirably old-school practical werewolf make-up). Like I said, the film just doesn’t seem to know if it’s coming or going. Such inconsistencies surely indicate, as we have long feared, a film made by commitee; you can just picture some besuited bean-counter saying “look at those Saw pictures, huge box office, gotta have the gore, the kids love it.” Maybe so. Certainly you won’t often read complaints about the red stuff here at Brutal As Hell, unless there isn’t enough of it. But rather more important is consistency, evenness of tone and vision. That simply can’t be found in The Wolfman.
Does this bode ill for the proposed future of Universal Horror (with revisitations of all the classic monsters in the offing)? I doubt it, and I sincerely hope not. Make no mistake: whilst The Wolfman may disappoint, it is without question a massively better film than the abysmal Van Helsing. A good analogy might be Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm – there’s so much good stuff there that should result in a great movie, but there’s an unmistakeable feeling of compromise, indecision, and plain-and-simple mismanagement that sours the whole thing. Even so, there’s just enough that works to keep it from being a totally disheartening experience, one which I’m sure the masses will find entertaining enough (pardon my superiority complex), and I have every confidence that the movie will perform well enough to guarantee the proposed big screen renaissance of the golden age monsters over the next couple of years. I just hope that the films to come suffer less behind-the-scenes strife and reap more satisfying results.
