Friday, February 12, 2010
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Friday, February 12, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
The Wolfman
The Wolf In You Howls At A
Bad Movie Rising
Emily Blunt as Gwen Conliffe in "The Wolfman",
directed by Joe Jonston. The Wolfman lurks in the distance. The film
opened today across the U.S. and Canada. Universal
Pictures
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Friday, February 12, 2010
It has been about a year and a half since "The Wolfman" was first supposed to
open in movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada, and its arrival today is a
perfect valentine to schlock and bad movies.
If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then look no further than Joe
Johnston's film, which via Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self's script is
based on Curt Siodmak's screenplay for the 1941 film.
Set in 1891 in Blackmoor, England, the film is about Lawrence Talbot (Benicio
Del Toro), an American man who learns of his brother Ben's disappearance and
along the way discovers the truth about it. Joining Mr. Del Toro is Emily
Blunt as Gwen, the devoted love interest to Lawrence; Anthony Hopkins as
Lawrence's father, and Hugo Weaving as a dogged police officer-marksman
Abberline.
All howl -- sorry, hell -- breaks loose when Lawrence is bitten by a rampaging
wolf, which we glimpse. And it's no "True Blood" love bite for ole' Larry,
either.
"The Wolfman" injects numerous jolts to your system, but these are a product of
a tired cinematic device designed to wake us from a slumber. The film
isn't scary or at least suspenseful the way films like
"Paranormal Activity" are. The jolts are
hollow punctuation marks at the end of a screenplay riddled with such poor,
predictable and plodding dialogue as:
Actor one: "Silver. Are you hunting monsters?"
Actor two: "Sometimes monsters hunt you."
It is a crying, howling shame that actors should have to utter dialogue like
this.
The biggest problem with "The Wolfman" is that it is a wooden, telegraphed and
over-orchestrated movie that needed more work on its screenplay instead of its
atmospherics or theatrics. The actors look as if they know they're in a
bad movie, which for Mr. Johnston is as bad as the moonlight that strikes poor
Lawrence.
Last year I spoke to Steven Soderbergh, who told me
that Mr. Del Toro told him that on the set of "The Wolfman", "[Benicio] said he
really went bonkers. Because, he goes, 'it would take us all day to shoot
me walking down a hall.'"
Surprise, surprise.
The actors look tired. It's not so much that they're miscast. They
are simply misused, even under-utilized, creeping out of the shadows at the
movie's convenience.
Even so, some of the production design isn't bad. I caught myself thinking
of the look/set design for Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" on occasion, but
everything else -- from shots of the moon to an unsurprising scene reminiscent
of Mike Nichols' film "Wolf" -- feels false.
Horror fans however, will be tickled red that the only dashes of real color in
the film are in the blood and the crimson entrails that are strewn across the
English countryside like an arrogant hunter's game kill.
Smashing!, such fans may say with delight.
With: Geraldine Chaplin, Cristina Contes, Art Malik, Nicholas Day, Michael
Cronin, David Schofield.
"The Wolfman" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of
America for bloody horror violence and gore. The film's
running time is one hour and 42 minutes.
Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film
Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times -
here
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