February 17, 2010
Everything about this movie is superb, top notch, first class, except for the script, which has moments of disastrous clunkiness (I don't think I'm doing a huge spoiler if I tell you that the Wolfman gets it in the end - as he is expiring in the arms of his beloved he croaks 'It had to be this way...'). This is such a pity, as it mars what would otherwise have been an exceptional movie.
Benicio del Toro is wonderful - his ravaged, haunted face, no longer beautiful but showing the ruins of a great beauty, is uniquely and powerfully expressive - he does not need to move one muscle to convey profound feeling. He is well matched by Emily Blunt, her quirky elfin face expressing a sensuality at odds with her tightly corsetted late Victorian costumes. Hugo Weaving as Inspector Aberline was also excellent, and an awesomely skeletal and filthy Geraldine Chaplin, with cheekbones that could slice bread, was wonderful as spooky gypsy Maleva, while Anthony Sher was, as Ed says, splendid as a sadistic asylum doctor. Only Anthony Hopkins was a tad disappointing, rushing through his (admittedly silly) lines as if it was the olden days and he had to get down the pub before closing time. The settings, costumes, and wolf man effects are all soundly traditional, but enlivened with a twenty first century taste for savage slashery and spectacular dismemberment.
There are some wonderful scenes, especially the one in the Lambeth Asylum where Lawrence Talbot has been banged up as a madman, when the evil doctor is preparing to demonstrate to a hundred or so black clad and bewhiskered colleagues that Talbot is delusional - unfortunately he has picked the night of the full moon, with predictably entertaining results. This did make Talbot Senior's argument that one should unleash the beast within seem very persuasive, as clearly the smug doctors all needed to be slaughtered and it was hugely enjoyable. Great fun, but not quite satisfying - see once as a curiosity.
Benicio del Toro is wonderful - his ravaged, haunted face, no longer beautiful but showing the ruins of a great beauty, is uniquely and powerfully expressive - he does not need to move one muscle to convey profound feeling. He is well matched by Emily Blunt, her quirky elfin face expressing a sensuality at odds with her tightly corsetted late Victorian costumes. Hugo Weaving as Inspector Aberline was also excellent, and an awesomely skeletal and filthy Geraldine Chaplin, with cheekbones that could slice bread, was wonderful as spooky gypsy Maleva, while Anthony Sher was, as Ed says, splendid as a sadistic asylum doctor. Only Anthony Hopkins was a tad disappointing, rushing through his (admittedly silly) lines as if it was the olden days and he had to get down the pub before closing time. The settings, costumes, and wolf man effects are all soundly traditional, but enlivened with a twenty first century taste for savage slashery and spectacular dismemberment.
There are some wonderful scenes, especially the one in the Lambeth Asylum where Lawrence Talbot has been banged up as a madman, when the evil doctor is preparing to demonstrate to a hundred or so black clad and bewhiskered colleagues that Talbot is delusional - unfortunately he has picked the night of the full moon, with predictably entertaining results. This did make Talbot Senior's argument that one should unleash the beast within seem very persuasive, as clearly the smug doctors all needed to be slaughtered and it was hugely enjoyable. Great fun, but not quite satisfying - see once as a curiosity.