CULTURE
The Howler
The Wolfman hits our screens this weekend amid much publicity. But does it live up to the hype? Elaine Peppard casts a critical eye.
The Wolfman, starring Academy Award-winning actor, Bencio Del Toro (Che, Traffic), Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) and Antony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), is a remake of the 1941 film of the same name. Sadly, however, they should have left this leg of the monster genre where they found it.
Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, a man left traumatised after the death of his mother when he was a child. Now living as an actor in America, he receives a letter from the fiancée of his brother (Blunt), informing him that he has gone missing and imploring Talbot to come home to assist in the search. At home in Blackmoor, England, he is reunited with his cold and eccentric father (Hopkins). After the discovery of his brother’s body, Talbot goes in search of the killer, while slowly realising his own destiny.
Though staying true to the original story when remaking a classic is key, it is also important in this day and age to add an element of surprise. Otherwise the cinema-going public will be left feeling bored, and light of pocket. This is where the film falls down. There is nothing new, intriguing or shocking in this story, not even by way of a subplot. Del Toro himself expressed a desire to bring this film to the 21st century, but it feels very much stuck in 1941.
Speaking of which, the use of CGI in this film is super old-fashioned. Though we must abandon all sense of realism when we go to see a monster movie, it is the job of the filmmaker to convince us, for 98 minutes, that what we are looking at is real. Director Joe Johnston, most famous for upping the CGI ante 15 years ago with Jumanji, fails miserably here. More often than not, his use of clunky effects distracts from the story.
It would be hard to criticise the lead male performances, but there is nothing convincing about the presence of Emily Blunt as the grieving widow who transplants her affections to her fiancée’s brother. There is also little or no chemistry between herself and Del Toro, which pushes believability even further out the door.
One redeeming feature of this film is its cinematography by Shelly Johnson, which brings the backstreets of Victorian London deliciously to life. The smog-filled streets lit only by gas lamps and under a permanent cover of fog perfectly set the atmosphere for a classic horror movie. It’s a pity the film’s other elements don’t match up, leaving The Wolfman more a DVD date than a cinematic event.