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’’? Of course, the Wolfman was always the poor relation of the Universal Studio horror crew. 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. 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. 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.
– 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.”