Synopsis: Upon his return to his ancestral homeland, an American man (Benicio Del Toro) is bitten, and subsequently cursed by, a werewolf.The main knocks I've heard on this film are that the script is weak and that it's not very scary. To that I say that from the moment I heard they were remaking this a few years ago I knew exactly what to expect from the script. Who didn't know the story? And I never looked to it to be scary, it's more of an action/monster type film. There is more than enough action and excitement to make up for the lack of true scares, highlighted by a whole werewolf battle at the end.
Personally I thought what stole the show was the really awesome Gothic look of the whole thing. The production values are just top-notch, matching the entire special effects effort. Everything looks great and sets a very cool, creepy, dark atmosphere. There are great shots of the moon and classic shots of the werewolf, when it sits still long enough.
I've also read that Del Toro "mumbles" his way through the movie, but I just never found to this be apparent. I easily understood every word out of his mouth and enjoyed his part. Anthony Hopkins as his father does his usual fine job as well and Emily Blunt was a good choice for the love interest.
What's wrong with it? Well, even though it's just 95 minutes long it did drag a bit. The story is a really simple one and probably shouldn't take as long to tell, so there's some drawn out boring chatter about this or that occasionally when most of us are just waiting for the monster to start some ass-kicking. The extra time could have been better used to flesh out some characters I thought.
So it's a simple story, with more action than scares, and it's sort of 2 parts. 1 part is a lot of fun and excitement and other part is a bit dull. It does look great though and I thought the fun outweighed the boredom.
7.5/10
