But it's Universal who have the greatest stock of the true Monster Movies, and The Wolfman is a remake of the 1941 classic starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains. And, if this remake is anything to go by, roll on future Universal Monsters movies.
I have to admit, it's a bit of a patchy film. I dozed through the first half hour or so and, to be honest, I didn't find any of the performances particularly electrifying. Benicio Del Toro does a good enough job as the man cursed to become a werewolf at the full moon, but it's not a particularly compelling character. Anthony Hopkins lends the film some weight, but is equally unsympathetic. Even Hugo Weaving as the Scotland Yard Inspector looking into the mystery doesn't really capture one's attention. He does slip into Agent Smith delivery once in a while, but not enough to ruin the film.
The main problem, at the heart of the movie, is that there's very little story, and it's played out very much by the numbers. It's all very functional. A leads to B, leads to revelation C, leads to climax D. It's not bad, and it is a remake... but it seemed rather flat.
While out, I managed to remember some of the DVDs I was after... Well, one anyway. I picked up Surrogates (missed in the cinema, but it looked intriguing), Them! (ancient cautionary tale about ants grown large following nuclear bomb tests which inspired the old Amiga game It Came From The Desert), Gran Torino (missed in the cinema, but recommended by a friend), The Good, The Bad and The Weird (Korean Western, featuring the guy who played Storm Shadow in the recent GI Joe movie) and volume 6 of TransFormers: Animated (they didn't have volume 5, though).
I have watched Surrogates and Them! today, but reviews will have to wait - giving myself an early-ish night due to a headache.
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