"The Wolfman"
Richard Crouse: Three Stars
Like its star Benicio Del Toro, "The Wolfman" is a little wonky but strangely appealing. The film, which has more to do with the atmospherics of Hammer horror than, say, the theatrics of the lame "Underworld" series, is a perplexing beast that mixes some fairly good shocks with a lifeless lead performance.
Del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, a Victorian-era actor who returns to his ancestral home outside London after his brother is attacked and killed by... something.
Awaiting him at the dusty old country house is his estranged (and just plain strange) father Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) and his brother's fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt).
Determined to find out who or what mauled his brother, he launches an investigation that leads to a gypsy encampment on a full moon. Guess what? He gets bitten by a werewolf and every full moon transforms into the thing he hates most.
Director Joe Johnston, (the helmer behind "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and "Hidalgo") proves he has a knack for old school horror atmosphere -- the film is all cobwebs, shadows and candlelight -- and action scenes but absolutely none for dealing with the heart and soul of the film, the characters.
The Talbots and Gwen dominate the movie but are more sketches of horror movie characters than fully drawn individuals. Hopkins (who gets the movie's best intentional laughs playing the Worst. Father. Ever.) and Blunt squeak by on acting chops alone, but Del Toro, who is in nearly every scene, isn't so lucky.
Perhaps he was poorly cast or perhaps he isn't really trying, it's hard to tell. He doesn't have a natural flair for the courtly dialogue that seems to roll off the British tongues so easily, but then again, the dialogue doesn't exactly sparkle. When your most memorable line is, "I will kill all of you," (repeated twice for emphasis) you know more time was spent on the set decoration (which is great) and the transformation scenes than the words.
Despite lots of dramatic moments— -- ong stares, meaningful glances -- there is little actual drama. The story is pure B-movie horror and exists solely as a vessel to keep things afloat until we get to the action scenes and the Holy Grail of every wolfman movie, the all important man to beast transformation.
On that score the movie entertains. Blood squirts, a disembodied hand shoots a gun and more blood squirts. It's a gory little flick that takes off after a slow start with some decent jolts (once it gets over using loud sounds to create tension) and two great transformation scenes courtesy of special effects wiz Rick Baker.
"The Wolfman" isn't going to do for werewolves what "Twilight" and "True Blood" have done for vampires -- werewolves are too hairy to be sexy -- but despite its flaws is a howlingly good Saturday afternoon matinee movie.
"Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief"
Richard's review: Three Stars
With the Harry Potter franchise winding to a close along comes the new kid on the block, Percy Jackson. Despite the protests of director Chris Columbus (who helmed the first two Potter movies and produced the third)—"It's nothing like Harry Potter," he said, "Harry Potter is about wizardry and this is Greek mythology." -- "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" plays like the boy wizard's long lost cousin.
Percy (Zac Efron look-a-like Logan Lerman) is an awkward teenager with problems in school, an unhappy home life and a lout of a step father who smells like Limberger cheese.
On a school trip he is attacked by a winged daughter of the night who accuses him of stealing Zeus's lightening bolt, the most powerful weapon ever created. Thus begins his Poseidon adventure. He is swept away to a mysterious training camp by his mother Sally (Catherine Keener) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) his best friend / satyr protector.
There he learns about his true heritage; that his mother had an affair with Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and he is a demi-god -- the son of a human and a god. He's told the world is full of such half gods, some whose names cannot be divulged, he's told are famous, "like White House famous." To set things right and avoid a war of the gods which would likely destroy earth he must find the lightening bolt, return it to Zeus (Sean Bean) and rescue his mother from Hades (Steve Coogan), god of the underworld.
"Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" is its own movie, but there are unmistakable comparisons to Harry Potter. Percy may or may not have stolen Zeus's lightening but he certainly steals some of Harry's thunder. The lead character is half human, half supernatural; he goes to Hogwarts… er, I mean, Camp Half Blood to fine tune his powers; he chums around with Hermione and Ron types called Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover and there's even a mid-air Quidditch match… er, I mean battle scene. Yes it may be derivative, but its mish mash of Potter and Jason and the Argonauts is really fun and should appeal to tweens who will get caught up in the action / adventure.
The action is fun -- there are battles with a Minotaur, a run-in with Medusa (Uma Thurman) and enough eight headed hydras to make Ray Harryhausen proud -- but this is a much more straightforward movie than any of the Harry Potter films. The lore doesn't run as deep, the dialogue is much more pedestrian and it is traditionally structured.
But Chris Columbus hits all the rights notes for a kid's movie, although it would have been interesting (and probably much cooler) to see what a director like Terry Gilliam could have done to stretch the fantasy elements of the story.
Whether or not Percy Jackson & the Olympians turns into some kind of Potter juggernaut is anyone's guess. If nothing else it's an imaginative fantasy for tweens and a crash course in Greek mythology to prep kids for Clash of the Titans coming later this year.
