Sometimes, all one needs is a human liver dangling from the mouth of the protagonist. This is the main premise of The Wolfman, a remake of the 1941 movie, starring Anthony Hopkins, Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving. The two movies are quite distant from each other, both in style and their own problems. The 1941 classic is rich in plot but plagued by everything that is considered unrealistic about old Hollywood. There is irrationality, sentimentally, high drama and an orchestra building up to the climax. However, the plot shines through; there is a clear allegory. As the rhyme says, a man pure of heart, Larry Talbot, is transformed to a werewolf. There is nothing he can do about it and the audience sympathizes because he is really a nice guy.
However, the new Wolfman barely has a surface appearance to the other. It is true that Lon Chaney, the original actor, holds a striking resemblance to Benicio del Toro and the names are well recycled. However, the date is pushed back fifty years from the, then, modern day to 1891. The once sweet reunion of Lawrence to his father has turned to sour estrangement. The character of Lawrence is not given to the audience, so approachably as in the older version. We can tell he is a good guy, but he isn't sweet and childlike. He's a grown man with serious chips on his shoulder. At a young age, he sees his mother lie dead in the arms of his father and comes home, eighteen years later, to find his brother has been mauled by a mysterious beast. The audience is given a very straightforward story but is not left to strongly identify with the characters. Lawrence's condition is hinted at, but we never get to know him. He is a distant tragedy, unable to fulfill a romance with his dead brother's fiancée, played by Emily Blunt, and overtaken by the big issue; he's a killing machine.
Where the Wolfman lacks easy to approach characters and a moral to the story, it is anything but a tame 1950s melodrama. The Wolfman is a force of nature and anyone can be killed. Without even the slightest warning, people start dropping like flies in the small hamlet of Blackmoor and the confused streets of London. The Wolfman's design and good work done on the CGI render these scenes amazing. Where the old Wolfman's humor lay in the occasional dopiness of the character, the new Wolfman is funny by the sheer ease with which he tears his enemies apart. The ill-fated Igor of a drafty Victorian asylum is disemboweled after he foolishly tries to sedate the monster before him and some part of the audience laughs while it cringes in disgust.
The pacing of the Wolfman is good, but nothing is done with it other than set up opportunities in which the monster might slaughter townsfolk. The problem with the Wolfman then seems to also stem from a distrust of the original story. Everything in the new Wolfman is a combination of horror clichés and action film stock fights. There is really only the idea that Talbot has become a werewolf. It is unfortunate, but look what he can do. Like many popular films, it aims at the mark of being awesome and, in a way, succeeds. If you are looking for a truly tragic tale of a man turned into a monster, made unable to truly follow his life out, then the Wolfman is not for you. But if you are looking for a strong display of computer generated magic, gore, and action scenes in a foreign environment, then it is strongly recommended.
