The Wolfman With Benicio Del Toro & Emily Blunt 2010
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The WolfMan starts out with a slight surprise in that we see Benicio Del Toro up on stage doing some sort of what looks like a Shakespearean play. It’s in a theater and we can tell that it’s set in the 1800s in England we suspect.
This strange woman played by Emily Blunt comes to him during the cast after party. After some reluctance the gatekeeper lets her in and she tells Benicio the story of how his brother is dead. She wants his help to find out who did it. But he tells her he’s under contract for the next 30 days.
Her argument ends up winning out and he heads back to his hometown of Black Moor.
There are a number of plot lines but one of them is the prodigal son returning home. Another is the fierce heroin who stands behind her man and even her man’s brother even under the most dire of circumstances. She never loses faith and this will play a big role toward the end of the movie.
There’s tremendous tension between his father Anthony Hopkins and himself.
I got the sense from watching it that he had vowed when he was younger to never return to this little “backwater town”.
His father is a bit surprised to see him as well. The reception they give each other could at best be described as chilly. His father tells him that he’s never gone to see one of his plays but that he understands his son pretending to be other people has garnered him lots of fame and adulation.
He vows to see one of his sons theatrical performances so he’ll know what everyone’s talking about.
But it was said almost out the side of his mouth which would make you believe that the promise will never be kept.
His father gives him an ominous warning almost the moment he gets there. “Don’t go out tonight son because it’s a full moon.” Very few people other than the gypsies believe in werewolves but apparently his father is among the believers. But it gets far darker than that.
Being the estranged son you just know that he is going to ignore his father’s advice.
And of course he gets into a mad struggle with the crazy Wolfman that night. He ends up losing the battle but not the war though he is bitten and now affected.
Many details of both the myth, the legend and the reality of the lycanthropy are revealed throughout the rest of the story.
Benicio senses something is wrong so tells the Emily character to go back to London because it’s no longer safe there. He packs her up in the middle of the night and literally send her packing. Things are getting very dark.
Then simply what amounts to a lynch mob comes to the house to take Benicio. Fear is running rampant but his father stops these men.
Then maybe the most interesting side character was the guy who played agent Smith in the Matrix movies. This guy always plays an awesome characters and does an excellent job. In the Wolfman movie he is one of the lead inspectors from Scotland Yard.
Benicio’s dad betrays him and he ends up back in London in the insane asylum he was formerly a patient at.
They subject him to all sorts of what seem like medieval torture tactics, electric shock, and an early form of waterboarding. These are all done in the guise of scientific cures for mental ills but I don’t see how any of them could possibly help.
It’s been a while since the full moon and there’s no way we believe that this insane asylum is going to hold him. When the full moon comes the head doctor views it as a chance to prove that there’s nothing wrong with him and he will remain a man. You just know that guy is going to die.
There’s a crazy scene where he’s running a rampage through the streets of London and on the rooftops. Agent Smith is hot on his trail with his army of guys from Scotland Yard.
But this is not quite the movie’s climax so the new Wolfman makes his escape. You know from the start the prodigal son going to have to have a confrontation with his father before the story can be complete. There’s just something about daddy issues which have to be resolved.
There’s a cool finish with a master battle between the 2 wolves, a big-time fire, and a scene in the woods were Emily’s character is involved. Of course, agent Smith is also there as well.
The movie ends off with a wolf howling and without giving away the ending of the story it leaves it open for a sequel.
