The Wolfman lacks any real bite...no pun intended.

Ever since I heard about a Wolfman remake, I had my doubts. My first worry, which came true in the end, was an R rating with copious amounts of blood. You don’t need gratuitous gore to make an effective movie, but I digress. My other worry was the obscene amount of changes in the script/director throughout the years. Overall they went through about 3-5 directors before deciding on Joe Johnston.

My first big complaint is the music. Don’t get me wrong, I love Danny Elfman and think he's a friggin genius but his score was just way too loud and obnoxious in this movie. I could barely understand what was going on half the time because I was distracted by the music. The same can be said about the rest of the sound effects too. The Wolfman howl was also incredibly lackluster.

The acting was all over the damn place. Sir Anthony Hopkins was top notch as usual. His creepiness really fit the gothic nature of the film. The same cannot be said for the rest of the cast though. Benencio Del Toro was surprisingly bad in this movie and I had very high expectations for him. He just couldn’t get the feel of the original down. I never felt like he was a character fighting with his inner beast, but just an overall depressed guy who doesn’t give a damn about anything. Hugo Weaving, despite having almost no screen time, was decent but I felt the script brought his character down. I did love his character reference though, which I won’t spoil. The other “lead” Emily Blunt was just awful. For being the love interest, there was a huge lack of chemistry between her and Del Toro.

The one thing this movie did extremely was the visual style. It really felt like an 1800’s Victorian Gothic town. The night scenes were fantastic due to a nice fog effect. If this was a silent movie, it would be easy to feel the “presence” of a stalking werewolf. The look of the actual Wolfman was fantastic as well. I could actually tell there’s a bit of human in the beast, unlike that other shit that shall remain unnamed. The big selling point was that the Wolfman was not cgi at all, but traditional costume and makeup. The transformation process was cgi, which disappointed me a little bit. I’m still waiting for another cgi-less transformation like in an American Werewolf in London. Interestingly enough, the makeup was done by the same guy who did London.

Overall, this was a disappointing movie and it’s very hard to recommend. The positives just don’t outweigh the negatives.