Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Geraldine Chapman, Art Malik and Anthony Sher
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 102 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011
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The Wolfman is fascinating for all the wrong reasons. Universal Pictures were no doubt excited when they secured Anthony Hopkins and’werewolf’ devotee Benicio Del Toro to star in a remake of the 1941Hollywood horror classic, The Wolfman. But an $84 million budget and state-of-the-art computer graphics are no guarantee of imaginativesuccess, especially not in the ever popular ‘werewolf’ genre, which hasits roots in folklore, and relies heavily on psychological credibilityand emotional resonance. Set in a mist-shrouded hamlet not far from London in 1891, TheWolfman begins promisingly with maximum speed and chill (unearthlyhowls, scurrying clouds and an ominously waxing moon), as it chroniclesthe blighted history of the once privileged inhabitants of Talbot Hall.
Lawrence Talbot (Benecio Del Toro, Traffic, The Usual Suspects), isa famous Shakespearean actor from America, in London on a theatricaltour, who is contacted by his sister-in-law to be, Gwen Conliffe (EmilyBlunt), and asked to return home immediately to help in the search forhis brother Ben, who has disappeared.
On his return to Talbot Hall, Lawrence learns from his father, SirJohn Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), that Ben has been brutally murdered andhis remains found in a ditch in the Blackmore woods. Sir John isaffectionate to Lawrence, but also oddly distant, and we learn thatLawrence was sent to America as a child, where he was raised by hisaunt after his mother’s untimely death.
Talk in the village public house is of a lunatic killer on theloose, and a band of gypsies camped in the woods is immediatelysuspected, as is their bear. Lawrence draws close to Gwen in his questto uncover the mystery of his brother’s death, and hears rumoursamongst the villagers of a beast that strikes when the moon is full,and a curse that befell his family 25 years ago.
‘The past is a wilderness of horrors, never look back!’, Sir Johntells his son. But after further horrendous killings, and the arrivalin the village of sharp-witted Inspector Frederick Abberline (HugoWeaving), of Scotland Yard (whose last case was Jack the Ripper),Lawrence is forced to confront both his own fate and his darkest fears.
Shot on location in England, The Wolfman is captivating to look at.The carefully chosen costumes and props look expensive and authentic,and there is a wealth of special effects, including some strikinglyarresting time-lapse sequences, which go some way to mitigating the derigeur horror of the werewolf transformations and killings (it is ahorror film, after all). But as hard as the film tries, it lacks dramaand is curiously unengaging.
It is tempting to think that had The Wolfman not been re-edited(more than twenty minutes have been cut from its original runningtime), the film might have worked better. Perhaps scenes have been cutthat would offer insight (and thus empathy) into the characters, notjust Lawrence (played opaquely by Del Toro), but also his all-importantfather (fleshed out well by Hopkins), and poor Gwen, whose role in thefilm is purely functional.
Very likely, The Wolfman fails because of the felt need of itsproducers to exploit CGI technology, and in other ways ‘update’ theelegantly simple, eternally relevant storyline of the 1941 classic uponwhich Joe Johnston’s remake is based.
Written by Curt Siodmak and directed by George Waggner, The Wolf Manwas set in the present-time (1941), and starred Lon Chaney Jr asLawrence, a genial, likeable man who through no fault of his own, fallsprey to the dark side of himself before being released by his father(played eloquently by Claude Rains).
This film (available on DVD) is memorable because of the poignancyChaney brings to his character, and because the film seamlessly fusesthe legend of the werewolf to the perennial mystery of human nature.
Johnston’s The Wolfman, on the other hand, muddies the psychologicalclarity of Siodmak’s script with extraneous ideas and alteredcharacters. This far from making the story more relevant or interestingeschews the emotional realism at the heart of the original story,leaving the viewer with much sound and fury, but little to empathisewith, or think about.
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