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The Wolfman
So
who doesn’t like a nice werewolf film, with lots of night shots of
creepy woods, a huge old mansion that seems to have empty eyeholes instead of
windows, lots of candles in every room, and of course the sound of wolves
howling at the full moon somewhere in the north of England? Well, “The Wolfman”
has it all in spades, even including an old gypsy woman who can foretell the
future – she’s played by Geraldine Chaplin – and Anthony
Hopkins as the father of our hero, Benicio Del
Toro. Benicio
Del Toro? How in the world did Benicio get into this film? Everyone but him is English, everyone
has an English accent, and he barely has an American one. And apart from the fact that
he’s put on about fifty pounds since we last saw him, he just wrenches
every scene out of what should be a wonderful make-believe world. And
to a certain extent it is; the photography is darkly ominous, the set design
and art direction and music are all appropriate – yes, I know, the
story is not what you might call ambitious; it’s just a retelling of
the 1941 version, but when you have werewolves there’s only just so
much invention you can put into your script. Good man comes home from abroad
because his brother is dead under strange circumstances, circumstances that
remind him of his own mother’s apparent suicide, finds his
brother’s widow, gets bitten by a werewolf, turns into one so that he
cannot consummate his love for the widow, has it out with the villain, and,
yes, dies in his lover’s arms.
The end. It’s
almost enough to make you cry, if only it weren’t Benicio
Del Toro’s death, which makes you want to throw up instead. If it weren’t for that,
“The Wolfman” would be a howlingly good entertainment. |