A remake of the 1941 classic, and keeping very much to the original's plotline, it's the 1880s, and Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) is reuniting with his father (Hopkins), Lawrence still struggling to overcome the disappearance of his brother. An event that effected him just as deeply as losing his mother as a child. It was his brother's fiancee, Gwen (Blunt), who pulled the absent Lawrence into the search, and he soon discovered that something brutal and bloodthirsty is wiping out the villagers - drawing a Scotland Yard detective (Weaving) to the scene of the crimes.
THE VERDICT: Struggling through something of a difficult metamorphis from script to screen, The Wolfman comes to us after a sacked director, buckets of reshoots and having been bounced around the release schedules like a peasant's severed head. The fact that the resulting film isn't a complete and utter mess says something for everyone involved. The fact that it's not particularly good either is not all that surprising either.
Del Toro (a major fan of the original movie, and a natural in the part) does a fine job, but the fact that the visionary music director Mark Romanek (Devil's Haircut, Hurt) was replaced by the perfunctory Joe Johnston (Jumanji, Jurassic Park III) tells you all you need to know about this film. It lacks bite.
Rating : 2/5
Review by Paul Byrne