The Wolfman
starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Art Malik and Hugo Weaving
screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self
directed by Joe Johnston
Rating: ♦♦◊◊◊
The estranged American son of an English lord returns home like the Prodigal Son to investigate the death of his younger brother. Of course, the family home is a great pile of stone on the moors, overgrown, dirty, dark and very Gothic. It turns out that a werewolf is the reason. Like all werewolf stories, the hero is bitten and turns into a beast himself, only to be hunted by the frightened villagers and finally killed by the girl he loves - with a silver bullet. See American Werewolf in London (1981, starring David Naughton, Jenny Agutter and Griffin Dunne, directed by John Landis) - a better movie than this one.
Considering the talent in the cast I expected a lot more from this film, which is based on the 1941 screenplay of the same title by Curt Siodmak. But it was boring - really boring - and Benicio Del Toro - in addition to being a really bad actor - sports the worst haircut in the world. Hugo Weaving (the Elf king Lord Elrond in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and Agent Smith in The Matrix) was the best actor on screen. I also wanted to see more of Pakistani-born American actor Art Malik, whom I have liked whenever I have seen him. Malik’s most famous role was the Arab terrorist Salim Abu Aziz in True Lies(with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, 1994). I also recognized English actor Roger Frost here, appearing as a village clergyman. Frost is best remembered as the customer who enters Hugh Grant’s travel bookstore in Notting Hill (1999, directed by Roger Michell) asking for Winnie-the-Pooh or John Grisham. This is only the second time I have seen Frost.