"The Wolfman" (2010) Benicio del Toro, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt
Ed Augusts
What a pleasure to see a film that was designed with deft attention,
dramatic sets and settings, great Victorian touches that range from
the inside of a faded, neglected 19th Century mansion to well-
researched views of 1891 London, including a torture-wracked insane
asylum, a plethora of energetic, very fast-paced "kills", and a
thrilling cast of characters that bring words like 'Gothic' and 'Dark'
up to the light of the projected image on the big screen.
I saw this movie in the caverns of the Century 20 behind the El Con
Mall in Central Tucson, a suitable spot for a Gothic evening. The film
kept me thrilled for two hours. I'd give it 8--1/2 to 9 stars out of
10.
The 4 producers of "The Wolfman", the 2010 remake of the 1941
original, have approached the theme with deep respect and courteous
interest. There are both some very familiar themes in this movie, as
well as many pleasant surprises. England is suitably grim and dank.
Who in England could ever be anything other than Gothic, if you judge
the country by the darkness of this movie? It's as if we're in a
nuclear winter , as there aren't 5 minutes of sunshine visible here.
Ah, yes! The woods are very deep... The trees are thick and gnarled,
as we see from the very first scenes of the Moon through a tangle of
overhead branches.
Like many werewolf and monster movies generally, (including Dracula,
King Kong, Godzilla, etc), the creature gets to travel. The victim in
this film travels from a great distance to the place where he becomes
part of the drama, and is ultimately bitten. Then he travels again,
spreading the cruel werewolf 'virus' along the way. In this case, the
werewolf turns up in London, and his departure from the London of the
asylum of horror, earning his survival with unparalleled violence, and
bearing a burden of knowing where he has to go, what he has to go,
after skulking out of London despite a massive and continuous manhunt,
er, wolf hunt, is uniquely cinematic and exciting. .
Benicio del Toro, who also helped produce the movie, played Talbot to
perfection. Those of us who know the Wolfman saga immediately know
what's likely to happen when del Toro is identified as "Talbot", as
this squarely identifies him with the Lon Chaney, Jr., character in
the 1941 saga. Del Toro is so good in
the role, it is clear that he is playing not only Talbot but the great
Lon Chaney, Jr. , and doing so very admirably. He looks absolutely
like the wild, young Lon Chaney, Jr., would have looked like, in the
mid-1930's or so, a little younger than his part as Talbot in the
original "Wolfman". .Del Toro sounds like Lon Chaney, Jr., as well,
with a haunting, troubled voice. The physical parallels such as
facial characteristics between del Toro and Chaney are remarkable.
Some elements of the Werewolf saga are a bit out of place or upside
down.. There is a silver wolf-headed cane on the premises, but Talbot
doesn't carry it or use it -- his father does. There are silver
bullets, but no crucifix. Or (let me see!) Silver bullets stop a
werewolf, but a crucifix or other religious object fails to act upon
the unnatural animal nature. Mustn't confuse werewolves with
vampires, now! That might be dangerous!
There are some very nice touches. This movie pays a lot of attention
to the power of the phases of the
Moon, and the dangers of the Full Moon's dire effects. There are more
shots of the Moon in this movie than in an illustrated Astrological
Ephemeris. When the victim of the werewolf's bite recovers from his
serious wounds in the weeks after a Full Moon, we see the Moon phases
as it turns from Full Moon to New Moon again, night after night..
Enter -- the Moon as healer! As the Moon wanes away, it seems to
lose more and more of its energy over humans, and the patient, despite
his crippling wounds, gets better and better.
Actress Emily Blunt knows how to make the appropriate faces of shock,
mystery, fear, dismay and
cunning, all the while maintaining a charming demureness She is more
expressive than the male characters, who wear expressions that seem to
have been painted-on in the make-up room. It may be a Victorian era
'touch' that falls on some deaf ears in our generations, but what is
the source of her deep committed love for Lawrence Talbot? She
switches allegiance rather easily from the dead brother to this one,
who's alive... at least partly. At least for 'now', until the hunters
catch up with him. That woman -- played by Blunt -- is snake-bit. She
loses the one brother -- then risks losing the other brother, as well.
Father risks losing all his kind. Again, we wonder -- why? Back to
Talbot's girlfriend: Biblically speaking, the surviving Talbot would
have a responsibility to take-on the duties of his dead brother . Del
Toro and Blunt stare into each others eyes a couple of times. Where
was I when some true romance was taking place? Did I phase out? Was
I concentrating on my popcorn? Maybe there isn't much romance because
it's too early -- she's still grieving for her dead lover. Thus, so
understated in male-female passion, the romance in this film could be
"G-rated."
Shortcomings? I'd say the great Sir Anthony Hopkins should have held
out for a script revision. His character is not fully developed,
never really explained, even when he tries to explain himself. For
one thing, it is incomprehensible why he did (and does) the things he
does. Is he mad? Does he have a strange Marquis de Sade philosophy
of fatality about life that allows him to blithely contemplate killing
all his blood-relatives? We are proving here that man can be more
brutal than even a feral creature of the night. Hopkins, as Talbot,
Senior, seems quite sincere when he says he loves his son, but maybe
Saturn did, as well, just before he consumed his planetary son,
Uranus. That man is not to be trusted! (Are any men, any fathers,
really to be trusted? Is this one theme of this film?) We quickly
see a different side of Talbot. In some ways he's every bit as big a
monster as the werewolf we expected to see when we sat down in the
theatre!
It may have been a mistake for the producers to use Anthony Hopkins in
this film because he quite unintentionally brings to the screen all
the intense energies of his previous role in "Silence of the Lambs"
and "Red Dragon." Let's not forget, it is the presence of Hopkins
which gives this film a lot of its credibility and darkness. Even so,
there is a strong feeling of dissatisfaction with the character
Anthony Hopkins is playing -- del Toro's (Talbot's) father. You
remember how in "method acting" the actors are asking the director,
"What's my motivation in this scene?" In "The Wolfman" the writers
seem to have quickly worked around Hopkins and not let his magic get
too intense. They turned him into someone who must be depraved; no
normal father or husband would act like that! Maybe he's not
depraved at all, maybe his nerves and his mind have snapped. Maybe,
at this part of his life, he's ready for the climax of the movie. We
think of Lawrence Talbot as being cursed and doomed. But how much
more cursed is his father? So there is food for thought among all
that gore. Maybe I do like Sir Anthony Hopkins' character here, after
all.
Speaking of "gore", there are a lots of "kills", some body parts
strewn about, but most gruesome acts of mauling and murder take place
in about half a second. There is a flashing, sleek Werewolf, a growl,
a slash, and another man lays dead. A whole cluster of hunters,
perhaps ten, is killed in about ten seconds. Well, of course! The
Wolfman is practically bionic. No mortal can physically challenge him
and live, not unless its near the very end of the movie. Actors who
don't have name value on the marquee are torn to shreds instantly.
Top-flight actors take a lot more of a beating. The actual rending of
flesh is somewhat subdued and practically off-camera. I'm not saying
the gore should be greater, or prolonged, but ducking it does not make
a great Werewolf movie, either.
There are other minor points, scenes which could, perhaps have been
done better. I blame editing for harried, rather choppy film scenes.
A flashback to a meeting, in India, with a feral boy who infects an
important character with the Werewolf virus, is shown in no more than
about 2 to 3 seconds. What kind of hyper-excited nearly
unintelligible flashback is that? Perhaps it was just added as an
afterthought by the writers seeking to explain how werewolfism
originally came to England. An Indian feral boy? At least that's
something that I don't think has ever been seen before in werewolf
movies.. ----Ed Augusts