Well, I liked it, and it was pretty bad.
I knew it would be, of course. I was absolutely certain when the release date kept getting pushed back, from Halloween all the way to Chinese New Year. But it would have been a safe bet anyway, simply because it was a werewolf movie, and the number of good werewolf movies ever made can be counted on the toes of one paw.
Why should this be, exactly? What is it about the werewolf myth that all but guarantees terrible movies, and to a lesser extent terrible literature? One would think the subject ought to be irresistible to the creative storyteller, encompassing as it does such diverse and colorful elements as folklore, psychology, and the philosophical dichotomy between man and beast. Yet for all this, actual decent movies based on the concept are as rare as... well, a blue moon.
So this movie basically started out with two strikes against it already: not only is it a werewolf movie, it is a remake of the grandddaddy of all bad werewolf movies. Name recognition aside, it has to be acknowledged that 1941's The Wolf Man was a terrible, terrible film. (Why "The Wolfman" this time around, Universal? Did the title "The Wolf Man" offer fewer copyright guarantees, or what? I'm just curious. It seems an odd choice for such an explicit remake. Also, I hope you know that you now risk being sued for defamation by Marv Wolfman.)
Anyway. Given that it is a bad film, does 2010's The Wolfman compare favorably to other werewolf films? I would say: yes, absolutely. It has virtually everything you might ask from a reasonably big-budget contemporary werewolf movie. For starters, it sensibly and effectively backdates the original film's setting to the much more atmospheric Victorian Era, which allows them to cram in the Gothic Romance tropes by the truckload.
The film definitely plays to its strengths: there may not be gifted filmmakers lining up to create werewolf movies; but every creature makeup artist dreams of creating a lavishly budgeted werewolf transformation, and every set designer dreams of creating a lavishly budgeted Victorian production. If anything, this becomes distracting at times, as you are always aware that you are looking at highly elaborate and lovingly crafted movie sets. This movie does not aim to depict Victorian England, but rather "Victorian England," that mythical cinematic land where color did not yet exist and everything was baroque and vine-shrouded beyond all belief.
Rick Baker, who has won six Academy Awards for Makeup so far (in fact I think the award was basically created in acknowledgement of his earlier effects in An American Werewolf in London) does a wonderful job here as expected, though apparently also augmented considerably by CGI. The transformation scenes are first-rate, and the monster itself is credibly terrifying while at the same time paying homage to Jack Pierce's original werewolf makeup.
Benicio del Toro, I am convinced, is deliberately spoofing Lon Chaney Jr.'s famously not-especially-good performance in this reprise of the character. Practically every word he utters is mumbled from the back of the throat in a terminally bland Midwest accent. The result is especially comical when one realizes that Larry Talbot, in this version, is an internationally famous American stage actor-- so renowned, in fact, that he can play Hamlet, at age 47, in London, to a full house. Del Toro also does a credible job of emulating Chaney's perpetual hangdog look, though that may just be his face these days.
Also, in order to account for del Toro being the son of Anthony Hopkins in this movie, Larry Talbot's mom is depicted as an almost ludicrously Frida Kahlo-like woman who prefers to wear Spanish-style attire even while raising her family in England. Honestly I would not have considered del Toro's physiognomy to be a credibility problem in this situation-- let's face it, Chaney didn't look any too much like British nobility either-- but the filmmakers apparently felt otherwise.
I think I can safely say that Anthony Hopkins does everything that one would expect Anthony Hopkins to do in a film like this. Once his character appears and utters a few syllables, you know pretty much what his deal is going to be for the rest of the film.
There are a few novel and interesting interpolations in this remake, mostly having to do with the revised Victorian setting. As previously mentioned, Larry Talbot is now a professional actor rather than a telescope repairman or whatever the hell he did in the first film. There are also some interesting bits which link the werewolf lore to the "Wolf-Boy" accounts of colonial India, and the events of the film take place in the shadow of the recent "Jack the Ripper" killings. Hugo Weaving plays a supporting role as an inspector from Scotland Yard, who is apparently still smarting after famously failing to catch the Ripper, and this eventually gets taken out on Larry. There are also some gruesomely atmospheric depictions of 19th century psychiatric care, which all leads up to a scene of cinematic payback which should delight anyone who has ever felt badly used by the mental health industry.
The plot features many elements from the original film; but again, as befits the Gothic Romance setting, the previously threadbare storyline is baroqued up and convoluted far past the limits of believability. In the end, nothing really makes a lick of sense, but it moves along at a reasonably good clip before the wheels really start to come off. There are some good scares, a lot of highly implausible behavior from everyone concerned, and a fair amount of graphic but good-natured gore all around.
The up-to-the-last-minute editing of the film is also highly apparent. I venture to guess that a relatively large number of scenes involving characterization and foreshadowing were cut in favor of more werewolfery-- not necessarily a bad thing, but it should be interesting to see what turns up on the DVD. I think I caught a brief glimpse of the 'pentagram' symbol introduced in the original film, but it is never actually mentioned in this version, so I suspect it was excised.
I bet there were more scenes with the Gypsies, too. As it turns out, I don't think anyone ever recites the famous poem from the original ("Even a man who..." etc.), though they did see fit to include it in the title sequence, in the form of a carved inscription. Which is then repeated in voiceover, for the benefit of viewers who can't read, I guess. Thank you so much, Universal. Fifteen seconds into the movie, and already my intelligence has been insulted. If I hadn't known the movie would be bad already, I might have been disappointed.