So I went to see The Wolfman… and, you know, for as much practical makeup as they appeared to use for the Wolfman, they had CGI bear and elk for close-up work…

Anyhoo, I didn’t much like this movie. It wasn’t bad enough though to be fun and it was trying too hard to be good/prestigious but just missing the mark a lot.

I was amused that everyone in the movie was pretty up on their werewolf mythology and seemed remarkably unsurprised that there was a creature running loose. Only people who weren’t in on it were those damn London city slickers. Jeesh! But even the inspector of Scotland Yard (fresh off the Ripper case) was pretty cool with the werewolf thing. Maybe they’d seen the old movies too?

The movie is set in 1891 so London is a sooty, dark, industrial place and the whole movie has a really nice look to it. I loved that the wolfman wound up in the big city instead of on the moooooors! all the time… but he wasn’t there enough. So much for those werewolves of London (awooooooooooo!)

It’s a fairly gory flick – earns its R rating so the kiddies might want to stay away.

But the real problem was that it just wasn’t scary and it seemed to want to play like a mad fever dream at times but never built up its steam – like it wanted to be a semi-sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula but just couldn’t reach that level of batshit insanity (I think Bram Stoker’s Dracula is unhinged and weird and always 5 seconds from going off all the rails at once – I dig it).

I’ve seen a lot worse movies – lets pick on Van Helsing and both Mummy sequels – so it’s a moderate piece of whatever.

Score: 65