The movie industry loves making movies about vampires and werewoles. People seem to be really fascinated by these legendary creatures. In the latest addtion to the horror movie genre is the remake of the 1941 classical horror movie "wolfman". In 2010, the year of remakes, is this remake another worthy addition to the already existing classics or is it a flop?
Well, to begin with, Wolfman has solid casts. From the award winning actor Anthony Hopkins, Benicio del Toro, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt. These are good actors, and the movie itself is directed by Joe Johnston (Jumanji, Jurassic Park 3, October Sky). Just by looking at the actors and the director, the team seemed to be going somewhere.
THe story of WOlfman started off by a character named Lawrence Tobolt going home to Blackmoor England to investigate his brother's murder. As he investigated into the murder he found out there is a nightmarish creature who has been killing people, and eventually Lawrence is bitten by the creature and turned into a werewolf himself. The story then goes on and gradually unfold, telling the bizzare tale of the origin of the werewolf curse, and a supposed "twist" at the end of the movie which is the typical Hollywood style "twist" that won't surprise the audiences at all.
The presentation of Wolfman is quite good, it is very dark and in the first 30 minutes of the movie the filmaker actually managed to build suspense, however it all goes downhill from there as the plot becomes very predictable. The biggest weakness of this movie is the predictability of the plot, the scipt writer gave away too many hints for the audiences to know what the ending will be like half way in the movie, and this really destroyed the film.
However, the special effect of the wolfman transformation is really good and realistic, the appearance and the transformation sequence of the wolfman is actually quite believable. I also like the dark atmosphere, the atmosphere really suited the theme of this movie. The sound effect is pretty good as well, however the score is pretty average.
Personally, I do not see any objectionable contents in this movie. Besides the violence and the gore might upset more sensitive viewers. However, because the movie is so dark, all the blood and gore cannot be seen clearly anyway, the blood actually appear black because all the werewolf actions takes place at night. However, I also did not see any contents that has anything to do with the teaching from the Bible. This is the kind of movie when you just walk in, eat pop corn and drink coke, turn your brain off and waste 2 hours for relaxation.
Final verdict:
I was pretty disappointed with the remake of Wolfman, because this is a movie with so many potentials yet wasn't realized because Hollywood decided to once again use the pop corn flick formula. The solid cast, special effect, and marketing promotion have sort of gone to waste.. The most frustrating thing is that, the result is not a good movie, but it is not even a bad movie because it is actually quite entertaining, this is something that could have been a classic, but reduced to an average 2 hour long pop corn flick. The director Joe Johnston have promised an extended edition of this movie when it comes out on DVD, and claimed the original cut has more character development, so if you haven't seen this in the cinema yet, and is thinking of seeing it, I'd say hold your horses and wait for the extended DVD version.
Score: 2.5/5 (average)
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