the blog of nathan loding

The Wolf­man (2010)
Star­ring: Beni­cio Del Toro, Anthony Hop­kins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weav­ing
Directed by: Joe John­ston
Writ­ten by: Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self
Rated: R

Rat­ing:

What I wanted when I sat down to watch The Wolf­man was quite sim­ple: some gore, a good (no, great) effect when tran­si­tion­ing, and some gothic imagery.  What I got was exactly that – and noth­ing more.

Lawrence Tal­bot (Del Toro) is a well-known actor in Lon­don, cur­rently play­ing Ham­let to sold out crowds.  Lawrence has been estranged from his father for some time; his mother com­mit­ted sui­cide and the fam­ily didn’t hold up well in the after­math.  After a per­for­mance, a beau­ti­ful young woman, Gwen (Blunt), inter­rupts his cast party with ter­ri­ble news.  Lawrence’s brother has been found bru­tally murdered.

Gwen is appar­ently attrac­tive enough to lure Lawrence back to Tal­bot Hall where he makes lit­tle attempt at recon­nect­ing with his father, John (Hop­kins).  Lawrence is bent on find­ing his brother’s killer and begins mak­ing rounds through the town.  Rumors of an awful crea­ture, a fell beast, are whis­pered.  The gyp­sies have made a stop in town and with them comes curses and monsters.

Lawrence (on a night with a full moon of course) heads to the gypsy camp to inves­ti­gate and gets mauled by the beast as it attacks the camp.  Though the wound should have been fatal, Lawrence is back on his feet in a sur­pris­ingly short amount of time.  As Lawrence’s fated trans­for­ma­tion into a wolf pro­gresses, Scot­land Yard sends along Inspec­tor Abber­line (Weav­ing), fresh off the Rip­per case, to calm the town’s fears and catch the killer.

The rest is details.  There is a par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing scene in a men­tal insti­tu­tion in Lon­don, and some chases in between.  There is a twist – one I didn’t see com­ing until the last minute – but not a great twist.  There’s a lot of fog and dark images in the forests and empty manse’s.  There’s some gore, some arte­r­ial spray.  Details.

Del Toro was an inter­est­ing choice to play the lead role, but he does so with obvi­ous admi­ra­tion for the mate­r­ial.  Hop­kins rel­ishes the role and is the best part of the movie, with his inter­est­ing stares.  On the other hand, Blunt and Weav­ing seem to drift through the script.  I can­not say whether it was lack of sub­stance or effort, but nei­ther part is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing even though they should have been.

The movies best moments are, nat­u­rally, the grotesque trans­for­ma­tion scenes.  An Amer­i­can Were­wolf In Lon­don was instantly famous for it’s cut­ting edge spe­cial effects.  Since then, not many were­wolf trans­for­ma­tions could top it.  I believe that Rick Baker and his team have done it, though – the bone crunch­ing VFX are well-done and make you twinge a lit­tle in pain.

I also asked for gothic imagery and got my fair share of it.  The cin­e­matog­ra­phy is well done – not award win­ning, and it makes a great overuse of post-production effects, but still man­ages to evoke the right emo­tions.  That is high praise for the cin­e­matog­ra­pher, who’s last big-screen effort was The House Bunny.

I must admit that I enjoyed myself through­out.  Yes, it’s mind­less, and brought noth­ing new to the story.  But it was fun, vio­lent, and dark.  If you like the story of the the Wolf­man, then check it out – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqT19ERntas