AwROOOOoooo! What are dignified, award-worthy thespians like Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Sir Anthony Hopkins doing in a piece of old-school hokum like “The Wolfman’’? Having the time of their lives while trying to keep a straight face. The movie is by no means good but it’s surprisingly enjoyable: a misty, moody Saturday-matinee monster-chiller-horror special that hits the same sweet spot for moviegoers of a certain age (cough) as those snap-together Frankenstein model kits from the late 1960s. You can practically smell the Duco cement. 
 
 Of course, the Wolfman was always the poor relation of the Universal Studio horror crew. The Frankenstein monster and Dracula got there first and had defining stars in Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; 1935’s “Werewolf of London’’ had the dull-as-dirt Henry Hull. (Nifty transformation scene, though, and points for inspiring Warren Zevon.) It was only with 1941’s “The Wolfman’’ that movie lycanthropy got a face: poor, hulking Lon Chaney Jr., who always suggested a football player who’d been forced to take over the family watchmaking business. That first “Wolfman’’ isn’t a very good movie, either, so it’s not like the new one is sullying hallowed ground. 
 
 On the contrary, director Joe Johnston (“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’’) and writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, working from Curt Siodmak’s 1941 script, treat the hairy old cliches with reverence. Set in 1891 in the fictional hamlet of Blackmoor, England, the new “Wolfman’’ lets the fog machines rip from frame one, and every time an offscreen wolf howls you may find yourself giggling uncontrollably. 
 
 In an inspired casting touch, Benicio del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, a traveling actor returning to his ancestral manse to bury his brother (Simon Merrells) and confront the family demons. Since del Toro already looks like the missing link - he has a hairline lower than Butch Patrick on “The Munsters’’ - this gives the makeup team only half the work to do. 
 
 Hopkins staggers merrily around as the unfathomably decadent Sir John Talbot, cradling a gun as if he were re-enacting his post-stroke scenes from “Legends of the Fall.’’ With tremulous conviction, Blunt plays Gwen Conliffe, the brother’s fiancée who’s drawn to the tormented Lawrence after he’s bitten one eldritch evening and starts staring fixedly at her neck. Since the original film’s Maria Ouspenskaya is long dead - not that that would have stopped her from chewing the scenery - Geraldine Chaplin has been drafted to play the aged Gypsy woman Maleva, issuing dire warnings and asking Gwen, “Vill you condemn him or vill you set him free?’’ 
 
 One caveat: Because this is the 21st century and the multiplex circus demands blood, the new “Wolfman’’ is trendily gory. The violence erupts in brief, visceral spasms rather than prolonged wallowing, and I was cheered to see the Wolfman tear loose a victim’s liver in one scene, like a dog going straight for the Liv-a-Snaps. Mostly, though, Johnston busies himself with atmosphere and mood; this is a more faithful updating of Universal horror tropes than the recent “Mummy’’ desecrations, and it has its very real, if goofy, pleasures. 
 
 The transformation scenes come courtesy of makeup effects legend Rick Baker, who doesn’t dwell on the details as he did in 1981’s “An American Werewolf in London.’’ They’re shown off best in the movie’s strongest scene, in which Talbot is trussed to a chair in a medical amphitheater, surrounded by Victorian doctors curious to see what happens when the full moon rises. (The payoff is delicious - for Lawrence.) As with all monster movies, though, the more you see the sillier it gets, and the climax of “The Wolfman,’’ with two Oscar-winning actors in fur masks going at it tooth and talon, plays like a tussle at the pound. 
 
 Del Toro, sadly, is a bit of a dud in the title role, reciting his ornate period dialogue in an embarrassed monotone. Or maybe he’s just channeling Lon Chaney Jr. Hard to say. “The Wolfman’’ knows the old horror classics had pure pulp running through their veins, and it honors those cheap thrills with gusto. This isn’t a great movie - it’s just a good dog. 
 
 Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation. 
 
 © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. ||||| Wolfman, The HORROR: United States, 2010 U.S. Release Date: 2010-02-12 Running Length: 1:45 MPAA Classification: R (Violence) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Geraldine Chaplin, Art Malik Director: Joe Johnston Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on the 1941 screenplay by Curt Siodmak Cinematography: Shelly Johnson Music: Danny Elfman U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures Subtitles: none 
 
 All of the great Universal horror movies from the 1930s and 1940s have now been remade: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolf Man. Over the years, there have been numerous cinematic encounters with lycanthropy, but The Wolf Man is to werewolves what Dracula is to vampires. He is unique. Since Lon Chaney Jr. cast aside the mantle of Lawrence Talbot following his run-in with Abbott and Costello in 1948, no one has picked it up... until now. In accepting the part, Benicio Del Toro isn't playing a werewolf; he is playing the werewolf. For most long-time horror fans, Chaney's portrayal of the tortured Talbot and his vicious alter-ego is as iconic as can be found in the annals of the "monster movie." Del Toro's lack of success, therefore, may be unwelcome but it is not entirely unexpected. It's hard to work in the long shadow cast by the likes of Karloff, Lugosi, or Chaney, but unavoidable when re-making one of their movies. 
 
 The root problem with The Wolfman is that it's a hybrid. It tries to fuse the gothic storytelling of the original with the violence and gore associated with modern horror. Its wedding of traditional makeup with CGI is uneasy. Director Joe Johnston wants this movie to be the bridge between the restrained, atmosphere-soaked Universal horror classic and the grotesque likes of An American Werewolf in London and The Howling. It doesn't work. Parts of The Wolfman - even those that were effective in the original - have been recreated in a fashion that seems more Monty Python than unsettling. More disappointing is the makeup provided by veteran Rick Baker (the go-to man for this sort of work), which looks inexcusably campy. The fangs look like they were purchased at a Halloween costume store and, during the big werewolf-on-werewolf clash, I was reminded of Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man. One has to wonder whether Baker's decision to remain true to the general appearance of the original Wolf Man is the right one. Nostalgia isn't always the best barometer by which to make creative decisions. 
 
 The action, which elects to retain a period piece flavor rather than time-shift the story, takes place in the 1890s on the moors of rural England. There stands the estate of Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), whose son Ben has disappeared. The other Talbot heir, Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), now a touring stage actor, answers a plea from his brother's fiancé, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), to come home and search for the missing man. By the time Lawrence reaches Talbot Hall, a mangled body has been found and a funeral has been arranged. Lawrence, determined to find the beast responsible for his brother's death, begins a hunt that leads him to a gypsy camp. While there, he is attacked by a half-man/half-wolf. The gypsy woman Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) sutures the wound, but pronounces Lawrence to be cursed: "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright." Indeed, at the time of the next full moon, Lawrence is transformed and goes on a bloody rampage. 
 
 In his portrayal of Talbot, Del Toro pays homage to Chaney, almost to the point of imitation. Unfortunately, this results in a neutered and muted character. Like Chaney's Talbot, Del Toro's interpretation is that of a man tortured and filled with self-loathing. However, the emotional connection is not there. As a human being, Talbot generates no empathy; the character fails to excite our emotions. The filmmakers have surrounded Del Toro with a respectable supporting staff, but it amounts to a waste of talent. Anthony Hopkins, in his second classic horror remake (he was Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), pops up now and again looking malevolent, but Sir John is more a necessity of the plot than a legitimate character. Emily Blunt's thankless role as the "love interest" limits her screen time and her opportunity to look fetching in 19th century garb. With the exception of one scene, she functions as underused eye candy. As a Scotland Yard inspector assigned to investigate the killings, Hugo Weaving defines superfluous. 
 
 The Wolfman had been searching for a director for some time before Johnston was brought on board. His experience with Jumanji and Jurassic Park III convinced the producers he could handle a film with a high number of special effects sequences and a sizeable budget. At best, the results are mixed. 20 years ago, the effects work in The Wolfman might have been hailed as revolutionary; today, it looks dated. The violence is bloody and graphic but it doesn't make the movie better, merely R-rated. Attempts to re-create the original's haunting atmosphere are middling - something is lost in the transition from black & white to color. 
 
 Even more so than Coppola's Dracula, Branagh's Frankenstein, and Sommers' The Mummy, The Wolfman seems unnecessary. Although not coming close to the level of a misfire that represented Van Helsing, this production nevertheless illustrates that it takes more to remake a beloved classic than re-working the story and taking a by-the-numbers approach. There are enough little details to indicate that the filmmakers were familiar with the original. Such familiarity did not result in a better product and the well-publicized re-shoots didn't save the movie from the graveyard of mediocrity into which its unintentional campiness and underwhelming special effects have consigned it. 
 
 Discuss this topic in the ReelViews Forums. ||||| Ghostly clouds drift across a haloed moon; dry twigs snap in a darkening wood; a covey of woodcock bolts from the undergrowth—startling, for a moment, a solitary traveler. He takes a deep breath. It turns out to be his last. Yes, that furry face seen in an almost subliminal flash was the feral beast lurking within "The Wolfman," a film that begins in an eerie gothic mist of suggestion—and turns into a toothless exercise in the obvious. 
 
 This updating of the old Universal horror franchise is among the more visually beautiful fright films ever photographed, and all the more disappointing for it. Directed by Joe Johnston ("Hidalgo," "October Sky," "The Rocketeer"), the movie is scary only as regards all its wasted potential—the color-drained, unnerving look; the inky black accents; the deliberate pacing; the occasional hint that the director understands the potency of implication. It's all here, in grains and drams. So is an accelerating sense of inanity, as all the movie's elements are reduced to a gruesome fondue, accessorized by actorly ham and studio cheese. 
 
 It may be that this "Wolfman"—which revives a storyline based more on Hollywood mythology than any particular ethnic fable—was misshapen from the cradle. The usually admirable Benicio Del Toro, portraying Victorian stage actor/lycanthrope-to-be Lawrence Talbot, is the worst casting choice in recent memory: Too old and plush to play the Byronic hero, he's also burdened with a modified Moe Howard haircut and a voice that loses us at "Hello"—a greeting that Mr. Del Toro delivers with all the authority and resonance of the Kim Jong Il marionette in the South Park team's "Team America." (I'm sorry; I can't get him out of my mind). Mr. Del Toro's Talbot, returning to his family's ancestral mansion in 1891 Blackmoor, finds that his missing brother's shredded corpse has been discovered in a drainage ditch and that his father (Anthony Hopkins) has apparently been dipping into the laudanum cabinet. As his fellow Blackmoorites, fueled by vigilante instincts and invective from the pulpit, pursue the "local lunatic," Lawrence transitions from hunter to hunted: A bite from the marauding creature dooms him to a future as a hairy homicidal maniac, one who can remove the limbs, heads and even hearts of his pursuers so quickly he can barely be seen. 
 
 Universal Pictures Benicio Del Toro as 'The Wolfman.' 
 
 Eventually, the Wolfman, like his movie, slows down—what good is state-of-the-art makeup and effects if no one gets to study them? Unlike the succession of glass plates used in 1941's "The Wolf Man," through which we viewed the moon-induced metamorphosis of Lon Chaney Jr., it is computerized orthopaedics that accomplish Lawrence's transition from man to wolf: His limbs contort, his face is twisted into a befanged grimace, his fingers sprout claws the size of fish knives. In keeping with wolfish tradition, it's an agonizing process, which may account for the creature's ill temper upon becoming fully lupine: He doesn't kill to feed any need besides bloodlust, and his eviscerations are graphic, grotesque and largely unnecessary—although when Mr. Del Toro is seen chowing down on some villager's liver, it may be intended as an homage to his somnambulistic co-star Mr. Hopkins (hold the fava beans). 
 
 There are other allusions—to waterboarding, during a scene in which Lawrence is subjected to the primitive therapies of an asylum quack; to religious extremism, when the local preacher ascribes the crimes of the Wolfman to divine retribution for unspecified sins. Emily Blunt, who ought to be perplexed finding herself in a movie so unhinged, is the only human element here that's remotely convincing, plausible or attractive; she's sexier than ever as the dead brother's fiancée, and gives a subtle performance amid a din of dramatic braying. Ultimately, though, "The Wolfman" is a horror thriller that couldn't have been made any worse by the addition of Abbott & Costello. "Sometimes, the way of fate is a cruel one," mutters "The Wolfman's" standard-issue, Maria Ouspenskaya-inspired creepy gypsy woman (a befossiled Geraldine Chaplin). No kidding, lady. Despite a solid conceit, a rather Brontë-esque Ms. Blunt, and sufficient computer effects to amuse James Cameron, this "Wolfman" is enough to make your hair fall out. 
 
 'Valentine's Day' 
 
 Speaking of horror, director Garry Marshall's latest atrocity, "Valentine's Day," might be described as a Repression-Era Special—an econo-pak of Hollywood second- and third-stringers, a couple of genuine stars (Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts), and a couple of annoying movie kids brought together by a poverty of ideas and a director whose only apparent instruction to his cast was "Act like the people in TV commercials." With enough sticky sweetness to make your teeth ache, "Valentine's Day" deploys every rom-com cliché, minus the com—there's isn't a laugh in the movie, unless you count a fleeting sequence featuring comedian Larry Miller, who's also probably the least prominent member of the cast (which includes Bradley Cooper, Emma Roberts, Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Shirley MacLaine, Hector Elizondo, Queen Latifah and George Lopez). 
 
 Warner Bros. Pictures Jennifer Garner plays Julia Fitzpatrick in 'Valentine's Day.' 
 
 If that lineup wasn't frightening enough, Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner are the ostensible leads, she a schoolteacher blissfully unaware that her boyfriend (Mr. Dempsey) is married; he a flower-shop owner who has just proposed, bedside, to his girlfriend (Ms. Alba), who apparently has someone do her hair while she sleeps. The foreshadowings are like billboards: When a movie woman looks thoughtful rather than delirious at the sight of an engagement ring, things don't bode well for the match. Neither does an affiancing that arrives so early in the story. As each character negotiates his/her own rocky road to romance, each of the interlocking episodes inflicts its own particular kind of pain on the viewer, who will wonder how any of this happened. So might the performers, who will have a few questions for the gods, and their agents: Taylor Swift, the multiple-Grammy-winning singer, is nothing short of mortifying as a ditzy high-school student in love with another Taylor ("Twilight's" Mr. Lautner). Jamie Foxx continues his post-"Ray" slide into self-parody. Topher Grace makes the world safe for innocuous ingénues. Director Marshall, grand poobah of the puerile and pandering, creates a shameless movie world for which no actor had to travel too far from home in Beverly Hills/Brentwood, no one seemed to have worked more than a day to complete his or her abbreviated role, and where Jessica Biel can't get a date. Right. Red, the hue that dominates this movie's palette, is the color associated with both Valentine's Day and the devil. And there's something vaguely satanic about "Valentine's Day." 
 
 'Ajami' 
 
 Enlarge Image Close coming Fouad Habash as Nasri in 'Ajami.' 
 
 If a movie can ever be perfect, it may be so only in its particular moment. This is "Ajami"'s moment. An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this Arab-Israeli drama set on the mean streets of Jaffa is an urgent, immediate, jarring-but-fluid, multicharacter portrayal of Arab life in an Israel ghetto (the 'hood of the title), where a drive-by killing provides the overture to a city-wide opera of revenge, death, drugs and star-crossed love. The co-directors/co-writers, Palestinian Scandar Copti and Israeli Yaron Shani, possess a Tarantino-esque blitheness about startling violence, and employ a "Pulp Fiction" approach to narrative-as-mosaic. But they also advance the technique of fracturing time, using the backward glances into their sad, sad stories as a way of revealing details that enrich and alter the viewer's perspective on what's happening among the movie's largely Arabic population. While the disposability of life on screen mirrors the disposability of life on the Ajami streets, one's immediate impulse is to describe the film as apolitical: Its conflicts, after all, are largely tribal, insular and produced by the Arabs' own pressure-cooker mentality. But, of course, nothing could be more political. 
 
 'Red Riding Trilogy' 
 
 It may lack vampires and blue people, but the already much-discussed "Red Riding Trilogy" is perhaps the moviegoing event of the year. Adapted by Tony Grisoni from David Peace's four novels based on the '70s-'80s Yorkshire Ripper murders, it's an all-star showcase for contemporary British/Irish acting and the gifts of Julian Jarrold, James Marsh and Anand Tucker, who directed parts one, two and three, respectively. Terrific performances are turned in by leads Paddy Considine (part 2) and David Morrissey (part 3), but it is Andrew Garfield—as the young reporter who suspects that the Ripper case is being used as a cover for a child-sex ring involving the entirety of a sordid Yorkshire constabulary—who establishes himself as one of the more gifted young actors around. 
 
 Reminiscent of the best British TV crime series ("Prime Suspect," to name one), "RRT" delves far deeper into the heart of darkness than its predecessors have ventured, or where most contemporary filmmakers dare to go. Produced by and aired last year on the U.K.'s Channel Four, it is taut, disturbing, wonderfully awful and, at 307 minutes, epic. "Red Riding" will eventually wend its way back to the small screen, but can continue to be seen in the proportions it deserves at the IFC Center in Manhattan, or, beginning today, at the Nuart in West Los Angeles. 
 
 —John Anderson contributes film criticism and coverage to a variety of publications. Joe Morgenstern is on vacation. 
 
 DVD Focus 'The Wolf Man' (1941) The first in Lon Chaney Jr.'s string of Wolf Man appearances features the formidable cast of Claude Rains, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi and, of course, Maria Ouspenskaya, who basically tells Chaney's Larry Talbot that he's doomed. The story is by the German-born Curt Siodmak, several of whose novels ("Donovan's Brain," "The Beast With Five Fingers") were turned into movies and whose "Wolf Man" script extrapolated from a number of legends, and employed the famous verse, "Even a man who is pure in heart / And says his prayers by night / May become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms / And the Moon is full and bright." 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981) Among the many werewolf knockoffs ("I Was a Teenage Werewolf," "The Werewolf," "Werewolf Woman") is this quasicomic take from John ("Animal House") Landis, in which a backpacking American tourist (David Naughton) is bitten by a creature that none of the locals will admit exists. All the songs titles, by the way, contain the word "moon" ("Bad Moon Rising," "Moondance," "Blue Moon," etc). 'Wolf' (1994) Casting Jack Nicholson as a wolfish man doesn't seem much of a stretch, but director Mike Nichols, working from a script by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick, created an extended metaphor for American business and American manhood by moving the werewolf legend into the publishing world. There, traditionalist book publisher Will Randall (Nicholson) is under siege by a ruthless media mogul (Christopher Plummer) and an underhanded rival (James Spader). Under siege, that is, until a werewolf bite turns Will into a corporate cutthroat, sexual beast and type AAA personality. John Anderson 
 
 —John Anderson
– Critics aren’t exactly howling over the new remake of The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro, giving it mostly mediocre or failing marks. Here’s what they’re saying: “The movie is pungent with atmosphere, laying down a thick fog of creepy Victorian murk,” writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post, but the story is toothless, centering on a mystery “so simple that even Marmaduke could have sniffed it out.” “The movie is scary only as regards all its wasted potential,” laments John Anderson of the Wall Street Journal. There are good elements here, but they’re “reduced to a gruesome fondue, accessorized by actorly ham and studio cheese.” The filmmakers obviously loved the original Wolfman, but “nostalgia isn't always the best barometer,” writes James Berardinelli of ReelViews. The makeup is “inexcusably campy,” and scenes from the original are “recreated in a fashion that seems more Monty Python than unsettling.” But Ty Burr of the Boston Globe had fun. “The movie is by no means good,” he writes, “but it’s surprisingly enjoyable: a misty, moody Saturday-matinee monster-chiller-horror special.”