The Wolfman

Let The Wolfman serve as exhibit "A" of a theory I've purported for a while now. If you have a monster movie, it will only work if the monster is the bad guy. It is nearly impossible to have a story work where the protagonist transforms into a rampaging Monster.

Ang Lee couldn't pull it off when he tried to launch The Hulk franchise in 2003. Louis Leterrier couldn't do it when he tried to reboot the same franchise five years later with The Incredible Hulk. And the recent Wolfman movie falls short for the exact same reason the others did. No matter how charming or charismatic the man (Eric Bana, Edward Norton, or Benico del Toro) may be, the monster can do nothing but grunt, growl, and destroy things. Ultimately, this makes for a lousy hero. We can't root for, empathise, or identify with a rampaging monster. And since the Monster can't communicate, there is no way to advance the story in a meaningful way.

The latest film to attempt the monster-as-protagonist vehicle is The Wolfman, Joe Johnston's remake of the 1941 horror classic. This movie stays true to the original to the point of keeping the same character names and premise. Lawrence Talbot (del Toro) learns of his brother's death and returns home to England to his family's spooky mansion. While investigating his brother's death, he is attacked and bitten by the Wolfman. Gypsies save his life but inform him that once bitten, he will forever turn into the beast himself.

I will give The Wolfman this, the attack scenes are believable and sufficiently gory. Johnston does not hold back in showing the brutality and the savagery of the Wolfman. The problem is, there is little else this movie has going for it.

Emily Blunt is wasted in a film that forgets she is there for a good chunk of the movie. As Gwen, the grieving fiancé of Lawrence's late brother Ben, Blunt does a very nice job with the scenes she has. It appears as if there is supposed to be a love story developing between Lawrence and Gwen but this gets shoved to the side when Lawrence is too busy eating people's guts. Then when Lawrence needs help, he finds Gwen and suddenly, they're in love (or something like it). We're to believe that she is not intimidated by his monstrous alter ego because she sees the true beauty within him. This might be believable if they had spent more than seven minutes of screen time together up to this point.

The ultimate undoing of this film was that it was just plain boring for too much of the time. And that is saying something for a period monster movie with a romantic subplot. The truth is, I really couldn't care what happened to him. I should have been desperately rooting for them to find a cure for his "wolfitis" so he and Gwen could be together. But I didn't care if they lived happily ever after or he dined on her entrails. And that is the surest sign you have a movie that doesn't work.

I could tell early on I was bored because I kept thinking of scenes I wanted to see that were included in better movies in the genre. The first time I saw the wolfman in a full shot, my mind went immediately to Teen Wolf (1985). So instead of being frightened of the scary wolfman on the screen, all I could think is "He's probably really awesome at basketball. I'd love to see this wolfman dunk on a couple of dudes!"

Not knowing the wolfman mythology as well as I do, say vampire mythology, I found parts of this movie to be very informative. I have collected some wolfman rules should any of you suddenly find yourselves being transformed into wolfmen.

RULE #1 – WOLFMEN ALWAYS EXIT A BUILDING BY JUMPING OUT THE NEAREST CLOSED WINDOW. I don't know what wolfmen have against walking out an open door but clearly it is never done. You would think these guys have stock in the local door and window company the way they shatter windows whenever leaving a building. Whatever the reason, this appears to be a hard and fast rule.

RULE #2 – WOLFMEN MUST GET RE-DRESSED BEFORE APPEARING AS HUMAN THE MORNING AFTER. It seems every time a guy transforms into the wolfman, we see him breaking through and tearing off his human clothes. But when we see him the next morning in human form for, what can only be described as the "wolfman walk of shame," he is fully dressed in those same clothes. Wolfmen must be very bashful about their bodies. I guess it's okay to eat the guts of any man woman or child who crosses your path but appearing nude in public is socially unacceptable.

RULE #3 - WOLFMEN HAVE ONLY ONE WAY OF SETTLING DISPUTES. Becoming a wolfman will pretty much spell the end of your career in conflict resolution. Once you become of full-fledged wolfman, you have only one way of settling disputes and it does not involve mediation. Not unless, mediation is a code word for disembowelment. But that seems unlikely.

 

Circumstance under which you should see this movie: You really want to drop $12 but you don't want to be saddled with all that story and character development. Ideally, you're just looking for some CGI gore and the occasional wolfman on wolfman brouhaha . Under these circumstances, I would suggest watching this film.