Reviewed by Doug Cooper
Stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, Art Malik, Simon Merrells, Mario Marin-Borquez, Asa Butterfield, Cristina Contes, Nicholas Day
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker & David Self
Certification UK 15 | US R
Runtime 98 minutes
Directed by Joe Johnston
Hands up anyone who knows what accent Anthony Hopkins is attempting in this new version of that hoary old horror tale. Irish? Welsh? Cornish? American? The Oscar winner's brogue veers all over the place, but it's only a minor quibble. On the whole, this fast-paced effort delivers the goods and is a lot of fun.
It was completed a couple of years ago when Sir Anthony was more portlier of frame. He plays the patriarchal head of Talbot House in wintry 1891 and his son has been unfortunately murdered on the outskirts of his grounds one chilly night. His other son, the well known Shakespearian thespian Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro), comes over from the US at the behest of his brother's paramour Gwen (Blunt) and goes about investigating his death. Could it be anything to do with the visiting gypsies nearby? When he goes to see them, however, they're attacked by a rampaging werewolf as it's a full moon. Carnage and dismemberment ensue. Soon the luckless actor is bitten by said monster and becomes a mad hairy dervish himself. Trusty Scotland Yard Inspector Abberline (Weaving), fresh from unmasking Jack the Ripper, must find the perpetrator of these hideous killings and Lawrence is looking like the number one suspect.
Gwen, though, begins to form an attachment to the sad soul. Can the love of a good woman save him? Frankly, who cares? We're not interested in the sappy love story. It's the scares and thrills we want to see, and director Johnston makes a good stab at giving us them. The action sequences are adroitly done with razor-sharp editing – bold, audacious and unafraid to give us the guts of the matter. Arms are slashed loose, entrails are eaten and decapitations are depicted with cheerful abandon. This movie knows exactly what it's about and is refreshingly devoid of stupid dialogue and crude overlength.
At roughly 98 minutes it is satisfyingly economical and imbued with good old Hollywood know-how. The Victorian haunted night-time ambience is persuasively rendered and the performers hit just the right note, solemn but not po-faced. Benicio – bless 'im – looks like a werewolf even without the make-up, but holds the proceedings together well. And the transformation scenes, courtesy of Rick Baker's make up effects plus some crafty CGI work, are terrific. A solid, dependable chiller then, more exciting than scary, but very entertaining. Give it a go.