THE WOLFMAN — ★★ — Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt; rated R (violence, gore, torture, brief drugs, slurs, profanity, brief nudity); in general release
The remake of the 1941 horror classic "The Wolfman" ends as it begins — messily.
And yes, that means this much-ballyhooed and highly anticipated horror movie is blood-spattered. Buckets of blood are emptied in this film, as a matter of fact.
Worse still is the final third of the movie, which is allegedly the product of a studio-imposed reshoot. This coda looks and feels completely different in tone and direction than the rest of the movie.
So the resulting film is such a bloody mess that it's not really recommended for anyone who isn't a die-hard horror/gore fan.
Benicio Del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, an English expatriate who's returned to his childhood home to investigate the mysterious death of his brother, Ben (Simon Merrells).
The villagers in Blackmoor are blaming the killing on local gypsies, but when Lawrence heads to the gypsy camp to find some answers, he's bitten by some sort of beast and barely survives the attack.
When he recovers, Lawrence discovers that he's cursed to become a half-human, half-wolf monster during the full moon.
Director Joe Johnston throws in a couple of nods to the original movie — Del Toro's Lawrence is an American stage actor, much like Lon Chaney Jr., who played the role in the 1941 version.
And Johnston has a fine cast. Anthony Hopkins plays Lawrence's father, while Emily Blunt is Ben's fiancee.
(Australian character actor Hugo Weaving also shows up in support, as real-life Scotland Yard investigator Frederick Abberline, a character that was also featured in the 2001 thriller "From Hell").
However, this movie is largely a failure — albeit an interesting one at times — in terms of its story and other content.
Del Toro's Lawrence isn't that interesting or that sympathetic, and the estranged father-son dynamic that's introduced doesn't work.
Then there's the problem of the film's makeup and other effects. This includes both the computer-generated ones as well as the makeup effects that were designed by Oscar winner Rick Baker (1981's "An American Werewolf in London").
These organic effects are much less convincing than the others, especially when they're finally seen under full lighting.
"The Wolfman" is rated R and features strong, sometimes disturbing violent content (gunplay and shootings, creature attacks, including beheadings and disembowelings, fiery mayhem, child-in-peril elements and violence against women), graphic gory and bloody imagery, sequences depicting torture (supposed asylum "treatments"), brief drug content and (potions and elixirs, as well as sedatives and hypodermic needle use), derogatory language and slurs (some based on ethnic origins), scattered profanity, and brief nudity (partial female nudity and glimpses of nude statues). Running time: 102 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com