islandclaws

His infamous Godzilla '98 review alone is enough to keep anyone from ever buying into his words.

My trusted friends who have seen the film all seem to echo similar sentiments: rushed first act, great second act, shitty third act. I'll be checking it out this weekend to judge for myself.

Dr. DVD

I'll be checking it out as I love creature features, and Universal seems to make exceptional ones. (Not to mention I've been waiting for what seems like forever.) I just wish they hadn't chosen to mess up this one.

Brent L

I haven't seen this yet, so maybe what I'm about to say isn't fair, but I'm just going by reviews I've read. I'm really disappointed how movies that look to me like they can't miss, like this on here and things like Public Enemies, are proving me wrong time and time again here lately. It seems to be happening more often these days for some reason.

Jumpman

Johnston's already said that the DVD/Blu Ray will come in an extended cut form of stuff "he would've left in." shocktillyoudrop.com has the interview with him that mentions this. From the looks of it, it sounds as if most of the stuff that's been taken out happens in the first act (aka the character stuff).

From the looks of it, it seems the extended cut could have upwards of 17 extra minutes of material added back in.

Still seeing it today but it's clear from the Johnston interview that this particular version is not exactly the version I think he would've released.

Dr. DVD

I watched the original last night. I think this might fall into a "Planet of the Apes" type "if only" category with me. Basically, the original script and story+modern FX and make-up = nearly perfect.

The original had some cheesy moments from the time period, but the character development, particularly of Larry and his father, was great. I can already tell they are taking a different route with their relationship. Rathbone's character was a loving father concerned that his son might have a mental illness. This one looks like it wants to hit us over the head with the fact that the actor playing Larry's father was once Hannibal Lecter(aka, he's up to something sinister). He played Van Helsing as well, isn't that a coincidence?

wm lopez

After watching this movie I could understand why the delay on releasing it.
It's got a little boring at times.
The 3 wolfman transformation scenes are worth the price of the ticket.

Dr. DVD

Saw it. Aside from some very good FX, horror action/gore, and fine actors, the new Wolfman movie is quite lackluster. The horror sequences are superb, but everything else pretty much sucks big wolfman balls. I was tempted to go with my "not as bad as I thought" option, but



I might get the Blu-Ray Directors Cut if it goes down to less than $15, otherwise, not really interested. Lots of disappointment, sad to say. Van Helsing, with all of its flaws, was more entertaining IMO.

Also,as I said earlier, I don't like it when movies use casting to hammer home the fact that certain actors were in other movies. Hopkins was obvious, and while I love Hugo Weaving, it was obvious they wanted him to play Agent Smith with his natural accent. The part where he leans forward and says :"I'm going to be direct with you Mr. Talbot," had me rolling my eyes.

Chimel was right, when the movie is doing the werewolf stuff, it's great. Unfortunately, that all amounts to less than ten minutes of screentime.

Perkinsun Dzees

Saw this today.

It's a well mounted, visually sumptuous movie with a surprising amount of graphically gory bits for the horror hounds.

That said, the movie is devoid of any heart or soul. The characters are mostly uninteresting blanks and the plot moves methodically from one predictable scene to the next until the big, unintentionally funny fight scene at the end, which looks like outtakes from a bad chopsockey movie.

Benicio is miscast in the underwritten lead role and Hopkins phones in his perf. Only Emily Blunt provides any sort of human dimension to the thoroughly uncompelling melodrama.

In the end, this is a movie that gives you no real sense as to why it even exists, other than than as a potential cash cow for the studio and a nice paycheck for the lead actors.

AmityBoatTours

Well Johnston is my favorite Director
after that I also a fan of John Huston ,Martin Campbell, Peter Weir, George Miller,Ron Clements, John Musker, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Myers.
But Joe Johnston hands down my favorite.

AmityBoatTours

Emily Blunt has two movies opening this weekend, The wolfman is not the better of the two, Young Victoria is a much better movie that also opened today that she stars in.

DrStrangeL0ve71

I don't get it. Why is he your favorite? The guy doesn't seem to have any discernible style from any other director for hire. I mean Jurassic Park 3? The Wolfman? Hidalgo? Jumanji? The Pagemaster? This is your favorite director?

wm lopez

Benicio has the look of a suffering man, but the problem is he looks that way before he gets bitten by the wolf. They should have used some makeup and cgi to make him look a happy guy.
Lon Chaney jr. looked like gentleman before he gets bitten by the wolf and then he had this look of the damned through out the series.

Matthew Chmiel

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Young Victoria has been out for two months (plus) now.

mdc3000

The Wolfman scenes are a lot of fun. Really well done... however, just about everything else is so boring and so underwritten that it just flounders. The whole love story doesn't work, the 'twists' are predictable (the flashbacks/asylum memories are excruciating) and the movie just WASTES the talents of Del Toro and Weaving. We never really give a shit about Laurence, or Emily Blunt, so there are never any STAKES here. I wouldn't have cared if everyone died. A lot of cool stuff going on when The Wolfman is wreaking havoc but everything else is just a bore.

Dr. DVD

Young Victoria just opened, or is it just going into wide release? I thought it was one of those late December Oscar releases in major cities type deals.

The Antipodean

It came out down here in the middle of last year!

Good movie, though, from the looks of it a lot better than Wolfman, although it's apples and oranges.

hapgilmore

I saw this today and liked it. Not great, but I was entertained. The production design is jaw-droppingly awesome! It needed more werewolf action but what it does have is loaded with gore (a plus in my book). Anyways, I think it is worth a matinee.

Daytripper

O.K., I didn't find this movie boring at all. It was good (not great) and worth a matinee or rental. Great production, sets. I even liked the special effects.

maxfisher

I saw this with my fiancee and some friends of ours. I nodded off from right after Lawrence escapes from the asylum until the last five minutes or so in the woods. I think that may be better advised than watching the whole movie, as I seemed to have the highest opinion of it out of our group and most of the other's complaints were about things that happened during my power nap. From the 85% or so I saw, I'd say it was ok, maybe a 6/10. I do think a lot of people will penalize it for squandering its potential, because while it's decent, it could've been great with some relatively minor tweaks.

Boba Fett

Saw this for free due to the $7 Universal Classic Monster DVDs at Costco having ticket codes on them.

I expected a B-movie; what I got was a hastily edited, choppy, C-movie, that ends up being incredibly, unintentionally funny (I don't think the largely older audience appreciated my laughing, at the end a few of them quietly clapped, indicating they thought it was a great movie); props though to the Gollum cameos.

Del Toro is the weak link here, looking more creepy when he's not a wolf and reducing me to tears of laughter with his excessive squinty-eyed intensity.

Hugo Weaving and Hopkins obviously realized the movie was a turkey and played it over-the-top to comical effect.

I'll give the extended cut a chance, because a lot of the stuff I laughed at was likely the result of entire subplots being gutted, but I can't see even that cut elevating it above the B-movie I expected in the first place.

I do hope though, Mike Nelson and the gang are already working on a RiffTrax script, because this is a tailor made movie for them.

2.0/5.0

Giantrobo

I just got back from a 12:15am showing and I guess I'll go against the tide here and say that I really enjoyed this film. I almost skipped it due to the half-assed reviews here but I'm glad I didn't. I was never bored and I enjoyed the "twist". I liked all the characters and the style and overall vibe of the film. The Wolfman scenes were a lot of fun.

That said, I agree that the editing needed work. It seemed like the story jumped ahead at certain points as if something was cut out. I'm not a huge Del Toro fan and I think he did the best he could with the role which alright, but I agree he was the weaker actor standing in the presence of Blunt, Hopkins, and Weaving. Speaking of Blunt, she looked amazing in this.

Drav3n

I saw this so-called movie yesterday and, ugh, what a trainwreck! The actors seemed so bored and lifeless (except for Blunt), the cgi was TERRIBLE! Cmon, the cgi bear and deer was so pathetic looking! And lets not forget the poorman's bad version of gollum appearing. The story was terribly cliched and everything that happened in the movie felt like it just happened.. meaning, no real buildup or anything to it. It was like one thing happened, and then immediately this happened and before you knew it, the credits were rolling.

I was really stoked for this movie ever since i first heard Del Toro was attached as the lead. I did enjoy the old school look and feel of the movie and the old school look of the wolfman, but the cgi destroyed this movie.

Giantrobo, what "twist" are u referring to?

Patman

This was horrible.

I give it 1 star or a grade of D.

Giantrobo

Defiant1

With this movie and I Am Legend, I'm starting to think that deer are difficult to render in CGI.

James Cameron, put off Avatar 2 and work on creating realistic deer!