Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) is an actor playing Hamlet in London.  He learns from his brother's fiance (Emily Blunt) that his brother has gone missing.   Lawrence goes home to a place he hasn't been for years only to learn his brother's corpse has been found.  He tries to find out who or what did it.  In the process after talking witha gypsy woman, he is mauled by a werewolf and survives.  He is cursed with the wolf and his life goes out of control as he finds out the truth about his father's past (the father is played by Anthony Hopkins).

THE WOLFMAN has excellent production and costume design.  It is filmed in a moody way with a great score by Danny Elfman.   The acting is solid, but the script is what lets the project down.   It has a few threads that could have been developed more like the romance angle with his dead brother's fiance and giving us a little more info about the Scotland Yard inspector that Hugo Weaving plays.  Then the ending is disappointing.   THE WOLFMAN has great action and gore only to be let down by predictable elements that are between action scenes.    I guessed who the main character was biten by warly on.  THE WOLDMAN is mostly a surface picture with not much substance beneath the skin.  It is like an old fashioned horor movie, but I wish they added a little more jazz to it.   It is just a beautiful film to look at that will be forgotten.

this movie review is (c)2-16-2010 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.   send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com