The Wolfman is Michael J. Fox on steroids

 

Editor’s note: Peter Lewis has agreed to use whatever it is you call his writing style to provide some measure of analysis to those folks who still go to a theater to see a movie. Enjoy.

review by Peter Lewis

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” -Verbal Kint, the Usual Suspects

It is no mystery that the greatest evils are unseen evils. These take on mythical proportions (not unlike the great Keyser Soze referenced in the above quote). The horrors that are there before us are never as ingeniously devious or flat out frightening as those that lay within the confines of our head.

The mind is a very powerful thing, but mostly we keep it tethered for we know the beast that lives within it: imagination. And this, we know is a balancing act. Imagination tiptoes the high wire line. If it is pointed up, it sees the sky. It sees the possibilities before it. It is inspiration incarnate.

If, however, the beast that is imagination happens to glance downward, that fear of what’s below consumes the mind. The wire cannot be traversed and the mind plunges deep into the ugly realm of fear. Yet, this plunge does not end until the fear is faced.  And with a thud, confrontation ensues. The fantastical suppositions of the mind take shape and one can see the fear for what it truly is: pedestrian.

The supposition of a horror film seems simple enough. Build fear and maintain it. However, few are able to achieve this simple concept. Those great films that do achieve it do so by cloaking the evil in possibility. A great horror film let’s the gruesome power of an unbridled mind run wild with ideas. What does this beast look like? How does it move so well? Where is it!? Is she next?!

For the first portion of The Wolfman, there are a few genuine frights as the story takes shape. Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, a successful stage actor estranged from his father, Lord Talbot (Anthony Hopkins). At the behest of his brother’s fiancée, he returns home to Blackmoor, England determined to find his brother’s killer (ironically, the village chatter places the blame for the rash of killings on a bear owned by Gypsies, the cross-continental “other” of Europe).

What ensues is a large blotch of poorly conceived plot and rather bland interaction. While Hopkins comports himself with a creepy steeliness, very few of the characters seemed to possess any chemistry. Scant evidence could be found of Del Toro’s supposed love connection with Gwen Conliffe, the fiancée (played by Emily Blunt), while much of the various townsfolk and other ancillary characters ever existed as much more than caricatures (though it must be noted that at least partial blame for the latter could certainly be attributed to the screenplay itself).

These sins could very well be overlooked had the early tension been maintained more effectively. Instead, the nice momentum was lost by letting the audience see the beast.  Once the horror could be accurately conceptualized? Poof. It’s gone.

And once you set eyes on this heretofore frightening beast, the movie changes. All possibility disappears. All the fear it had previously instilled slips away. As the camera follows the charging beast, the images seem farcical. Absurdity replaces any semblance of fear as the audience is given full view to The Wolfman. In short, the result looked quite similar to the silly beast in Teen Wolf (take away a few pounds of muscle, knock off a couple inches in height, ditch the slick CG and say hello to Michael J. Fox, ladies and gentlemen).

A few of the Wolfman’s victims fell to the fate of decapitation. Fortunately, the film didn’t wholly succeed in decapitating my own smiling visage, but it came far too close for comfort.

You’d be wise to stick to the couch and rent “Nosferatu” or “The Shining” instead.

• The Wolfman is playing at the Carmike 14 and the Malco Cinema 12 in Fort Smith, and the Malco Van Buren Cinema. Link here for time and ticket info.

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