Maybe my wife and best friend are right: I just don’t like horror films. I certainly didn’t like THE WOLFMAN, which I found boring, uninvolving and not at all scary. I wanted to like THE WOLFMAN in part because I always thought he was the most vulnerable of the all-male horror creature fraternity – the plain honesty of Lon Chaney Jr.’s face, even when covered with hair, was needy and emotional in a way that Frankenstein and Dracula just couldn’t’ muster. All the more reason to be disappointed by this remake which uses the same Talbot family introduced the 1941 original Universal film THE WOLF MAN (George Waggner); the script by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self is based on a wonderfully inventive screenplay by Curt Siodmak, who became a significant Hollywood horror writer, penning 72 screenplays made into films in his career. There were four sequels to the hit original THE WOLF MAN so this character’s reappearance almost 70 years later could be looked upon as just having been on an extended hiatus. There won’t be a sequel to this WOLFMAN (why have the words now been merged? Welcome to 21st century movie marketing – I’m sure both spellings were tested and this one won). This film is almost a Lucasfilm reunion, one of the rare films in which people who once worked with George Lucas now work with each other. Director Joe Johnston cut his movie teeth by art directing the visual effects on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Irvin Kershner, 1981), RETURN OF THE JEDI (Richard Marquand, 1983) and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Steven Spielberg, 1981). Wow – that is a stunning accomplishment in a three year period. I also enjoyed Johnston’s earlier directing accomplishments, particularly THE ROCKETEER (1991) and OCTOBER SKY (1999). But nothing seems to work in this remake that tries to make up in atmosphere what it lacks in drama and chemistry. And for once in a long career of cutting great films and massaging good films to be better, editor Walter Murch seems lost in this material. The film felt unfocused and hard to follow at times, something that rarely occurs when Murch is an editor.  It’s easy to see why Benicio Del Toro wanted to play the title role – he has rarely done period drama, and the Wolfman is the ultimate conflicted character. If Michael Fox can make this struggle engaging in TEEN WOLF (Rod Daniel, 1985), then how hard it should be for Del Toro, one of the most gifted method actors of his generation? Way too hard, by the results in evidence here. Del Toro is so inwardly focused on who he is das an actor that he doesn’t seem at ease outside of a contemporary time and space – he simply isn’t believable in this kind of period film. Johnston’s skills have always been more in the technical side of filmmaking, although he got lovely performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper in OCTOBER SKY. But he allows Anthony Hopkins to run riot over the screenplay and any other actor in the frame – he hasn’t overacted this badly since MAGIC (Richard Attenborough, 1978) where he played both a ventriloquist and his murderous dummy. There is no chemistry between Del Toro and Emily Blunt in her most boring performance to date. Need I go on? Some projects are just ill fated and THE WOLFMAN is another example of how good intentions don’t necessarily make a good film. The movie studios should make all filmmakers pass under a large banner at the studio entrance: remake a classic film at your own risk.

Dir: Joe Johnston, 2010. 103 mins. Universal Pictures, Relativity Media. Produced by Sean Daniel, Scott Stuber, Rick Yorn, Benicio Del Toro . Screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, David Self, based on Curt Siodmak’s screenplay (1941). Cinematography by Shelly Johnson. Edited by Walter Murch, Dennis Virkler. Production design by Rick Heinrichs. Music by Danny Elfman. With Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Cristina Contes, Art Malik, Nicholas Day, Michael Cronin, David Sterne, David Schofield, Roger Frost. Viewed on DVD.