This is going up a couple of weeks late, but it's my first real movie review, and I want to do more stuff like this for the blog, so I'm posting it anyway.
For Valentine's Day, Jill and I decided that we wanted to catch the "counter programming" film for the weekend and opted to go see The Wolfman. There were a hundred reasons that we should have liked this film. There was an excellent cast, and it's based on the classic Universal Monster film of the same name. However, the story/script seem like they were rushed into production half finished, and the director made some questionable decisions with the film.
For those of you that aren't up on the story, Benicio Del Toro's character is a tragic figure who the audience is supposed to sympathize with. However, the scenes of the wolf unleashed are so brutal, it's hard to feel too much sympathy for the man that just brutalized 2 dozen people.
The biggest issue I had with the film is that it seemed to be lacking a clear identity. The film begins like a murder mystery similar to Tim Burton's re-imagining of Sleepy Hollow. But then half way through the film, the movie shows it's hand, and shifts gears more into an action/horror film. By the end it decided to go for the obvious tragic ending with a predictable twist. However, once we got there, I was less concerned about whether or not there would be a sequel and more concerned with why Universal would release this in the hopes to reignite it's Classic Monster franchises.
That being said, I didn't hate the movie, I just didn't particularly like it either. I really wanted this movie to be good, and I would have excepted it had the story at least felt finished. However, this movie was so rough in so many places that I can't say much good about it.
I'm not sure if you're aware of this film's notoriously troubled production history, but a quick glimpse at the Wiki' page should give you an idea of just how big a mess the theatrical cut really is.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolfman_%282010_film%29
You'll notice a section towards the bottom dedicated to the "Extended Cut," but you'll find a lot more information under the "Soundtrack" section which details just how thoroughly the film was re-edited (and in some cases, reshot) to quicken the pace.
To be fair, I haven't seen it yet (although I may actually catch it at The Rotunda tomorrow), but all reports I hear from those who've seen it suggest that this film was pretty well butchered in the editing room.
That doesn't mean that all of the film's problems boil down to editing. Joe "CAPTAIN AMERICA" Johnston is the closer to Chris Columbus than Tim Burton. He gets the job done, but does so in a basic journeyman way.
--tom
That doesn't make me pleased to hear about Johnston at all, Tom. Not one bit.
ReplyDeleteDoes Joe Johnston have some oddball directing credits? Sure! But he's got some fun movies on his resume. I like October Sky, Jurassic Park 3, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I can't speak to Hidalgo and the Rocketeer since I've never seen either of those, but as I recall both have a solid fan-base (as does Jumanji).
ReplyDeleteThat being said, isn't the Cap movie going to be his WWII origin? That seems to me to be the right era for Johnston, so it should be fine.