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Heart-bursting, blood-pumping and pulse-racing, the “Wolfman” provides an adequate thrill ride, but the squeamish should be weary that every curdling worry becomes fully realized in the gory resolutions of the action sequences.
However, “Wolfman” attempts to be more than just a fantastical, slasher horror film as it tries to parallel its story to that of “Hamlet,” “The Prodigal Son” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Unfortunately, it jumbles the story lines and twists them in such confusing and sporadic ways that it becomes almost humorous.
The acting is surprisingly average despite an excellent cast that includes Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro.
Del Toro’s character, Lawrence Talbot, is the main character and subject of the film, which opens with him trying to uncover the gruesome mystery surrounding his brother’s untimely death. This leads him down a tragic and uncompromising path towards his inevitable fate.
The scenes where Del Toro is allowed to develop his character on his own are excellent; however, they are interspersed with scenes that attempt to create a strange love affair between himself and his late brother’s wife Gwen Conliffe played by Emily Blunt.
These scenes have a sense of being oddly fabricated as Blunt and Del Toro lack any sort of stage presence together. On the contrary, it is as though they are inhaling the energy right out of each other’s lines. Unfortunately, their love affair plays right into a confused and befuddled ending that is never fully explained.
Hopkins plays Sir John Talbot, the crazed father of Lawrence Talbot. There are scenes, especially at the beginning, when Hopkins’ role really shines.
However, as the movie progresses, instead of the viewer being enlightened to the struggle and sickness of John Talbot, there is simply more disorder and bewilderment added. By the end of the film, it is impossible to classify Hopkins’ character as anything but insane, but the explanation as to what causes this dramatic shift in character is never fully expounded upon, which creates a sequence of apparently random, inexplicable actions at the end of the film.
Hugo Weaving, the man who played Agent Smith in The Matrix, plays constable Abberline, the witty detective from Scotland Yard.
Unlike the other performances, Weaving’s role improves as the movie progresses, but at the onset of the film, his slow, pronunciative talking is too reminiscent of his Agent Smith character in the Matrix, which is a problem because the two characters are really not alike. Fortunately, this does improve as Weaving settles more into the character of Abberline, but even by the end of this film he is not able to capture the stage with his presence, and Abberline becomes an unfortunate side note throughout the film.
The set designs are the best part of this movie, and they are simply fantastic.
They create the mood perfectly, and are gorgeous to behold even in all there dreariness. The costumes are also very well designed except for the Wolfman costume, which is neither grotesque nor frightening.
The film is trying to do too much by being a great action film, while attempting to parallel great dramas, but it loses itself in its own daring legend.
