"I admire your noble intentions. You think you can save him...but you can't."
There is a very fine line between restrained and dull, and unfortunately the 2010 take on The Wolfman frequently veers towards the latter. The tortuous route this film took to get to the screen may be best evidenced in the unevenness of its realisation, with modern-day visual and aural styles competing with reverence to the period and the source material, often making the film look like Sleepy Hollow directed in the style of Blade. Universal's relatively extravagant budget for this version of one of the late-entry efforts in the studio's original horror cycle gives rise to rich set design and strong location work. Unlike Hammer's brightly-hued colour reboots of the Universal horror catalogue in the late 1950s/early 1960s, here the colour palette is flat and drained to almost black-and-white for the most part. Whilst neither particularly scary or horrific, The Wolfman plays as solid if rather unengaging drama. The underused Hugo Weaving lifts the piece as a wryly written Inspector Abbeline, whilst leads Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt convey objective earnestness rather than emotion. The limited and moderate transformation scenes lack the true human horror and pain seen in Rick Baker's similarly-orchestrated set pieces in An American Werewolf In London, but thankfully the CGI creations here are not of the poor quality seen in that film's Paris-set sequel. A modern-day credible reinvention of the werewolf legend may be possible (although Wes Craven's Cursed didn't quite hit the mark), but as a period-set piece, The Wolfman adds little to what has already been seen, resulting in a handsomely-mounted but ultimately rather pointless re-make.
There is a very fine line between restrained and dull, and unfortunately the 2010 take on The Wolfman frequently veers towards the latter. The tortuous route this film took to get to the screen may be best evidenced in the unevenness of its realisation, with modern-day visual and aural styles competing with reverence to the period and the source material, often making the film look like Sleepy Hollow directed in the style of Blade. Universal's relatively extravagant budget for this version of one of the late-entry efforts in the studio's original horror cycle gives rise to rich set design and strong location work. Unlike Hammer's brightly-hued colour reboots of the Universal horror catalogue in the late 1950s/early 1960s, here the colour palette is flat and drained to almost black-and-white for the most part. Whilst neither particularly scary or horrific, The Wolfman plays as solid if rather unengaging drama. The underused Hugo Weaving lifts the piece as a wryly written Inspector Abbeline, whilst leads Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt convey objective earnestness rather than emotion. The limited and moderate transformation scenes lack the true human horror and pain seen in Rick Baker's similarly-orchestrated set pieces in An American Werewolf In London, but thankfully the CGI creations here are not of the poor quality seen in that film's Paris-set sequel. A modern-day credible reinvention of the werewolf legend may be possible (although Wes Craven's Cursed didn't quite hit the mark), but as a period-set piece, The Wolfman adds little to what has already been seen, resulting in a handsomely-mounted but ultimately rather pointless re-make.
No comments:
Post a Comment