In Theaters: The Wolfman

The Wolfman, Joe Johnston's gallingly leaden remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic, both lives and dies by its transformations. Its most obvious selling point is also its most successful: Johnston nails the depictions of a humble man's gruesome morph into a flesh-hungry monster. And yet the film itself is felled by a rending confusion about whether it is at heart a genteel narrative thriller in the gothic mold or a single-player limb-ripper that, with a few programming tweaks, could easily find a spot at the Xbox Olympics.

Not that it plays either of those parts very well. Despite a high-toned look the script is almost impossibly dense with C-movie sinkers. Writers Andrew David Walker and Kevin Self don't seem capable of ending a scene without a thunk, or opening one without a stony cliché. "Lo and behold, the prodigal son returns," is the actual greeting Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) offers his son Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro) when arrives at the family's North England estate after being summoned by his brother's fiancée Gwen (Emily Blunt) to help locate her missing betrothed.

We know its something of a fool's errand, having watched the poor chap get torn to shreds by a shadowy beast even before the title credits roll. And so within the first few minutes viewers are asked to synthesize graphic rampaging (and similarly punishing sound design and score), über-gloomy art direction, and Hopkins's campy interpretation of his poetry-reciting, moon-gazing madman into a coherent tone. Where a film like Sleepy Hollow, despite its flaws, gave a cinematic burnish to an old folk tale with vision and a precise dose of self-awareness, The Wolfman fails to persuade even itself of its intentions. As a result the film is most convincing as an opportunistic crack as the revived vampire/teen wolf market.

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