The Wolfman (2010, Joe Johnston)

If someone had told me Anthony Hopkins was going to have a major role… he’s so laughably bad, it’d be funny–if the joke of The Wolfman wasn’t on me.

Universal Studios doesn’t have any comic book properties so they’re apparently going to go through their horror catalog and churn out more turds like The Wolfman. It’s supposed to be an “adult” horror movie (it’s for thirteen year old boys at best), but it’s really a hodgepodge of mediocre special effects and superhero movie stupidity (this movie wouldn’t have existed without League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Ang Lee’s Hulk or Wolf for that matter). It reminds me of The Jackal, another terrible Universal remake.

The werewolf transformations are poor, CG-added to American Werewolf in London. Nothing more.

Actually, it starts all right–well, it starts not terrible (it rips off Bram Stoker’s Dracula a lot)–but the toilet flushes once they get to London. There’s no point to the trip except to show a CG werewolf on rooftops.

There’s some rather good acting–Emily Blunt’s way too classy for this one (the film feels less British than the original, which shouldn’t be possible). Geraldine Chaplin is good in what should have been the film’s most important role, but wasn’t.

Every change the screenwriters make from the original is awful. The cinematography’s at best pedestrian–from Shelly Johnson; Danny Elfman phones in the score. But the real disappointment is Johnston. His direction has absolutely no personality, just like the film.

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CREDITS

Directed by Joe Johnston; screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on a story by Curt Siodmak; director of photography, Shelly Johnson; edited by Dennis Virkler and Walter Murch; music by Danny Elfman; production designer, Rick Heinrichs; produced by Scott Stuber, Benicio Del Toro, Rick Yorn and Sean Daniel; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Benicio Del Toro (Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot), Emily Blunt (Gwen), Hugo Weaving (Aberline), Art Malik (Singh), Antony Sher (Dr. Hoenneger), Simon Merrells (Ben Talbot) and Geraldine Chaplin (Maleva).