More like pekingeseman

I went into this movie thinking it was going to be very epic and finally give werewolves the kind of screen time they deserved. Eh... not so much. Saying I was less than pleased is a bit of an understatement.

Plot: The plot was typical and sort of made sense if you think until your head starts to hurt. The character roles sort of... didn't make sense. *SPOILERS AHEAD, YO* What exactly was the father's motivation? One second he's extremely devoted to his wife and feels sorry for killing her, but the next he's making his son's life a living hell because of it? I suppose one could argue that it was his warped way of "testing" Lawrence to make sure he was strong enough to carry his legacy but it was still craptacular and left a lot to be desired. Unfortunately this "twist" comes in during the last thirty minutes of the film. The other 70 minutes are spent watching a bunch of villagers in top hats running after the werewolf and/or Lawrence with torches. The movie's plot would have been ten times more enjoyable if it hadn't dragged on so much. You can figure out what's going on midway through and after that you're just rolling your eyes waiting for the rest of the Special McSpecialsons to come to the same conclusion. Oh, and can anyone explain to me the point of the gypsies? Aside from stitching Lawrence back up, and he could have probably survived the injuries on his own anyway, they really served no purpose. There was only one main gypsy chick anyway and her advice was not only ignored but made no sense!


Acting: The acting was one of the higher points of the movie. As I expected, Anthony Hopkins was badass and extremely creepy. In the beginning he just seems like a withered but strong-willed old man pitter-pattering around his manor but as the movie goes on and it becomes clearer that he's perhaps the least innocent of all the characters, he really turns up the creepiness factor. Emily Blunt was a perfect slice of British pie but I could be quite bias in saying that as I've loved her since I first saw her in The Devil Wears Prada.

Design & Special Effects: The movie was set in Victorion London like a handful of other movies that have come out in the past year. Enough said on that end. What I'd like to know is what Star Wars set they robbed for their Chewbacca masks. I did not expect, in any sort of manner, for this movie to be a horror movie. I understood that it was a remake of the original Wolfman and was meant to be a suspense/thriller if anything at all. However, I don't think I was supposed to *laugh* when they showed the wolfman's face. Really? REALLY? When he wasn't screaming at something he looked like a damn Pekingese waiting to be fed a little milkbone treat. The rest of the time I could have sworn Chewbacca was running around trying to eat ye old English villagers. I could slightly begin to understand if they were trying to pay homage to the original by going back to basics with the effects, but that obviously isn't the case if you watch those fucking sweet transformation scenes. I was in awe of how cool it looked when Benicio first wolfed out and how his limbs tried to rearrange themselves. How do you go from that to Party City masks? Ugh, consistency please.


All in all, I'd say don't waste your money going to the theater. If anything, wait for it to hit the sale rack at your local DVD store. Trust me, it will.