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Saturday, October 18, 2014

The Wolfman (2010) Unrated Director's Cut



I was pretty excited about The Wolfman, Universal's 2010 remake of it's classic 1941 horror movie The Wolf Man.  But then the movie came out, and got pretty bad reviews and word of mouth.  I still wanted to see it to judge for myself, but I kept letting it getting pushed back in my queue in favor of other flicks.  But it's directed by the same guy who directed The Rocketeer and Captain America: The First Avenger, so it should be good, right?  I finally got around to watching it yesterday, only four years late!  And you know what?  I likes it!  Is it a classic?  No, not really, but it's still pretty darn good.  I'll talk about it a bit after the break.





One of the cool things about The Wolfman, is that it is a straight up remake of the original, it's not just a generic werewolf flick.  Benicio del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, the same character Lon Chaney, Jr. played in the original.  And the story is pretty much the same as well, although with a few tweaks. The changes they made to the story were smart changes, that helped make the story even more personal for the main character, and adding more excitement and pathos for the end of the film.  It really seemed like they had a lot of respect for the original film, and tried to keep everything that was great about the original, just updating it with modern special effects and filmmaking techniques.


The film looks fantastic.  The sets, costumes, art direction, creature designs, are all really stylish and cool looking.


The film isn't all good, though.  It's overly long, at least in the director's cut version of the film, and the performances are fine, but a little lackluster.  Picking up the pace of the film, and letting Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins give juicier performances would have made the film a lot more fun to watch.  I mean, I didn't necessarily want them to ham it up into full blown camp or anything, but this is a stylized horror film, they could have taken it a little more over the top.  But still, if you're a fan of the original Wolf Man, or of classic horror movies in general, this is definitely one to check out, if you haven't already.


















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