Raptor Howls at the Moon

So last weekend I caught the The Wolfman at the movies. This was one of those movies I was looking forward to but was a little worried that it would be…well crap really. I’m happy to say it wasn’t crap but a reasonable fair. This I can pretty much say was mainly due to the strong acting guns of the cast.

Director Joe Johnston has a number of well know movies under his belt such as Jumanjii and Jurassic Park III and some Visual Effects notably from Indian Jones and Star Wars. Here he has brought to life the Victorian period along with the superstitious village atmosphere meeting the forward thinking city folk.

Do these teeth make me look angry?

The story centres on Ben Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) and actor who returns home to his windowed father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), after the death of his brother to some wild animal or crazy psychotic. He encounters Gwen his brothers now widowed wife played by the lovely Emily Blunt and promises to track down the killer. After tracking down some gypsies they are assailed by the werewolf and he is bitten.  Soon London sends their finest to help track down the killer and by finest I mean the Detective on the Jack the Ripper case, Abberline, non other than Mr Smith himself, Hugo Weaving.  This leads to the eventual confrontation between Ben, the Werewolf and Abberline.

As you can see, the cast is really strong and they do put their acting chops into this and make quite the believable and dramatic presentation. Del Toro does a great job as the brooding Ben and even manages to make some of the cringe worthy lines laudable. Anthony Hopkins plays the liege of the family as a distant broken man slowly drifting into madness. At first I thought he may be playing to his role in Dracula but believe me it’s wildly different from this. Hugo Weaving is great as always as the Abberline, a cunning and grounded man who doesn’t believe in the superstitious; by the end of the movie his views are shattered.

Emily Blunt actually plays a very strong heroine as Gwen. She isn’t simpering and does take action herself in lie of events.

19th century Victoria is recreated beautifully. From the cities, to the clothing and even scenic locals of the misty woods it’s exactly what you’d expect. Now the werewolf transformation was pretty good although it did look a little CGI at times. The werewolves themselves were mostly practical FX which is great and harkened back to the old black and white Werewolf movies but every now and then you just look at the makeup and think, I wonder if that mask is going to fall off or can you pick your nose in that thing? Also there is a lot of killing and gore in this. We have decapitations, eviscerations and I’m sure there was and emasculation there somewhere amongst the severed limbs.

On the other side the end fight see did make me giggle a little also with all the latex masks and body fur running about. The big reveal of who the identity of the werewolf was so obvious that I don’t even have to mention it here but let’s just say it’s one of the above. Finally there was a couple of cliché dialogue scenes were I did groan a little, these saved only by the deliverance of the actors.  Oh yeah, no boobies at all to see in from here to Queen Victoria herself.

Overall the Wolfman is a very good creature feature with a couple of fury areas that could use a trimming. I give this movie a 7.5/10.