 "Photo: Contributed photo")
"If anything ever happened to you I'd never forgive myself", is a line that is as original as a politician lying during election season. Yet it makes its way into another movie. This sums up what "The Wolfman" is: unoriginal and nothing that we have not seen or heard a hundred times before.
I guess the newest incarnation of a man howling at the moon would be considered a remake of the original 1941 film starring Lon Chaney Jr. but, why did it need to be made? In the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, I am not a fan of remakes; very few of them ever turn out to be any good. Sure, there are exceptions like "Scarface" or "The Departed", but they are few and far between. And, the reasons those were successful is that the filmmakers took the original source material and made it their own.
The brain trust behind "The Wolfman" did this, unfortunately I don't think they are qualified to trace a 5-year-olds Mother's Day drawing, much less remake a film that cost millions of dollars. The plot points that were changed made no sense; why create an unnecassry villain? The cat-fight between the two werewolves at the end was ridiculous. I am also confused as to why they felt the need to include real-life Jack the Ripper inspector Francis Aberline. To my knowledge he never was involved in any werewolf cases. Again, making the story your own, but not in any positive, intelligent way.
Now, onto the acting. There is really not much to say other than it seemed uninspired, then again I would be too if I had to recite some of those lines. I was hoping Benicio Del Toro would salvage the movie somewhat, he is usually great in anything, but this did not happen. Anthony Hopkins does Anthony Hopkins at this point in his career, with only minor deviations. And, when it comes to Hugo Weaving, every time he speaks I expect him to say "Mr. Anderson, welcome back." Not to say he is bad, he just sounds and acts the same in evdery film. Lastly, Emily Blunt is talented and well, hot.
Overall, the only thing the new "Wolfman" accomplished, over previous incarnations, is infusing better make-up and special effects with talented actors. Unfortunately, the script or direction was not up to those standards and in-turn spawned a crapfest that I was subjected to for a couple of hours. All-in-all this was a film that did not need to be made. One suggestion, if you want a werewolf fix this weekend, just rent the original. It's shorter and has much more atmosphere.
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