The Wolfman

In reimagining the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. horror film of the same name, screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self have beefed up the Freudian family drama (two brothers, a father, a dead mother), added a romance between the recently returned Talbot heir (Del Toro) and his murdered brother’s fiancée (Blunt), and thrown in a detective (Weaving) whose conversion from rationalism to acceptance of lycanthropy happens too fast. The first half is heavy on atmosphere and false leads that suggest there’s another movie on the cutting-room floor. The film starts off blessedly light on CGI wolvery, but Johnston yields too much to the computer’s siren song for the more cookie-cutter chase-and-gore second half. But oh lordy is Hopkins having fun as Del Toro’s mad, bad and dangerous-to-know father. We went for the wolf, but enjoyed the ham.

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