Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (Universal's New Wolfman movie)

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

[MouthForWar]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[Dr Kain]

[Pkmatrix]

It's on Netflix? Looks like tonight's another movie night!

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[Pkmatrix]

[king_ghidorah]

I'll rent this since it's essentially free. Expecting to feel hatred surging through my veins as I did watching The Wolfman remake.

[MekaGojira3k]

[king_ghidorah]

[MekaGojira3k]

It's not like I think the movie is amazing, or even very good. It just doesn't elicit rage or anger in me. I'm not saying it's bad, either. I'm just surprised at how mad everyone appears to be at certain movies. *shrug*

[king_ghidorah]

Dissapointment. Squandered chances. Manipulation by studios and marketing. Fanboys prone to extreme reactions and trolling (I'm still amazed you think this is over-reacting or we're treating this film less than it's due because it's not "instantly enjoyable" or that I'm just spamming hate here...this is still a relatively civil place for mature discussion on films) There are many reasons to get angry over a film. By your logic, you should never love or enjoy a film either. It should just simply be, neither good nor bad. No point in discussing it because whether the movie succeeds or fails is entirely up to you as a viewer...there's no sense of scale. Plan 9 From Outer Space is just as valid as Seven Samurai.

Sure, that's a popular school of thought in film critique these days, but it's not one I agree with. People can enjoy bad movie sure, but that doesn't make the movie good. The movie is bad even if you see the secrets of the universe in it if its script is a poorly written mess, the acting is wooden and the directing is lazy.

[MekaGojira3k]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[MouthForWar]

[king_ghidorah]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Pkmatrix]

Watched this last night. Like Tom, I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Firstly, the tone is all over the place, it doesn't seem sure whether it's a horror movie, an action movie, or some sort of satire. The cinematography doesn't help, because it's shot in this really over-the-top style and edited almost like a music video. Just a shoddy job all together.

The story has some interesting ideas, although none of them are executed to their full potential. It's set in some sort of fantasy "time of monters" era in generic Eastern Europe, with the only real hint as to "when" being the presence of Gattling Guns (so, post-1865) but no telephones, electricity, or cars (so, pre-1890). I kinda hate it when movies do that...it's just annoying. The movie presents Charles the Werewolf Hunter as the main character, when in reality it's clear it should be focusing on Daniel, the actual werewolf. It seems the writer figured that eventually by "killing off" Charles and making Daniel the main character for the last act, but they should've rewritten the whole thing to reflect that. I liked that they incorporated the idea that the child of a werewolf is also a werewolf and can, with time, be able to transform at will, which I think goes back to the novel Werewolf of Paris.

In the end, though, the story, like the rest of the movie, is a mess. The werewolf hunters are generally pointless and feel anachronistic, the action set-pieces are almost universally dumb, the characters almost entirely numbskulls, and I'm left puzzled how this project got to this point. It's like a lower budget Van Helsing with somewhat better SPFX and without any of the stuff that made Van Helsing at least interesting to watch. I wasn't bored by it, but I felt like the good ideas here were wasted.

Thinking about it, they even hint at a FAR better idea than what they made:

Early in the movie, Daniel is accepted into medical school and the Doctor (one of the two villains) urges him to escape the carnage while he has a chance. What if we cut the werewolf hunters entirely, focusing on Daniel fleeing to the city (say, Vienna or Prague) to attend medical school, only for the werewolf attacks to continue there. Then you can have him learn he's a werewolf, about his father, and how the Doctor had been secretly manipulating him to be his personal killing machine. You could then have the opponent be some Police Inspector who catches on to what's happening. Wouldn't that be more interesting?

Anyways, the ONLY connection to the Wolf Man franchise is the presence of the Werewolf poem that's been in every Wolf Man movie. I really don't see how this was, at any time, intended to be a sequel to The Wolf Man (2010), although I can sort of see how this MIGHT have been intended as some sort of prequel to the original film.

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Shonokin]

I've seen a lot of crappy movies, but the only movie that actively pissed me of was Miller's The Spirit. And it wasn't because it was a crappy movie, which it is, but because it really seemed to be made purely for Miller to spite Eisner's ideas of what is entertaining and good by doing exactly the opposite in every respect to Eisner's signature character. I was literally offended by the whole thing.

Oh actually there is another movie; GINO actively pissed me off. Back when we were kids I had a pact with my best friend that no matter where we were, we'd get together to see it if an American made Godzilla movie ever came out. So when GINO came out I flew from California to Madison WI to see that crap.

But outside of those two, I can brush off pretty much any crappy movie without getting mad. It has to have something pretty special to make that happen.