The Wolfman

Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving and Antony Hopkins
Releasing in cinemas: 11 February 2010
Rated: MA 15+

Sheer lunacy

In the film game, it pays to know what your movie is "about" - I'm not talking about the plot so much, but rather what kind of style, feel or take on the material you want to convey. Sadly, director Joe Johnston can't seem to make up his mind in his latest, The Wolfman.

One thing we can be certain about is that this is a remake of the 1941 film The Wolf Man, starring the legendary Claude Rains and Lon Chaney. But from that point on, Johnston can't seem to decide where to go. Is it to be a faithful remake? It seems to start out that way; but then what are we to make of the silliness that creeps in later? Perhaps it's meant to be a kind of post-modern spoof; but if that's the case, then the oh-so-serious acting would be entirely out of place. Maybe it's just supposed to be campy B-movie fun; but if that's the case, then Johnston probably misses the mark.

Personally, I think he may have gone for a combination of all three; and if so, the end result is as much a mish-mash as that concept would suggest.

The film starts out creepily enough, with a man killed by an unseen terror on the misty English moors. The man is Ben Talbot, and his death brings his brother Lawrence (Benico del Toro) - an actor who's been in America for many years - back to the ancestral manor to investigate the killing. The place certainly isn't what it used to be, with his aging father, Sir John Talbot (Antony Hopkins) having let it gradually run down since the tragic death of his wife (Lawrence's mother) many years before. The local villagers are naturally spooked by the gruesome killing, and have their own theories - with the chief suspects being a bear kept by gypsies who have recently appeared in the area, or an escaped lunatic. When they confront the gypsies at their camp, it rapidly becomes apparent that it's not their bear, for the villagers and gypsies alike are attacked by a swift-moving, fearsome creature. In the melee, Lawrence is attacked and bitten by the beast. Recovering from the attack, Lawrence is tended to by Gwen (Emily Blunt), his dead brother's fiancee, whose interest in him may be more than merely filial. The escalating violence however brings a strong response from the authorities, in the form of Scotland Yard's Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving)

After a promising beginning, this confounding film descends into a morass of werewolf cliche and general nonsense. The shock value of the opening scene is high; but the tension it creates is soon dissipated by some curious plot turns and directorial decisions. Even the ending is bemusing, and more than a little fatuous if you ask me.

While the plot is loosely based on the 1941 film, some important details have changed. Writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self have plopped in the Inspector Abberline character (in case the name isn't familiar, the real Inspector Abberline was a leading figure in the Jack the Ripper case); and introduced some serious daddy issues into the tale. This is arguably the weakest part of the film; as it takes what should be a visceral and confronting experience and debases it to the level of soap opera.

The acting is uniformly strange, which suggests it's a directorial choice. Apart from Anthony Hopkins, who throws himself into his role with relish, the remainder of the cast appear to be on Valium. Chief culprit is Benicio del Toro - otherwise a favourite of mine - who seems almost comatose at times. Hugo Weaving is straitlaced but oddly unconvincing as Abberline and Emily Blunt seems to speak every line in a whisper (maybe it was those corsets).

I happen to like a good werewolf picture, but The Wolfman isn't a good werewolf picture. It's far too disjointed, predictable and just outright silly to be really effective. This really is an object lesson in muddled movie-making; a scrambled melange that makes little sense and even less of an impact.

David Edwards