Sunday, February 20, 2011

He'll rip your lungs out, Jim!

Watched the recent remake of The Wolfman on the TeeWee last night.

The script is so predictable that it's impossible to actually be startled or frightened by anything that occurs. Worse, Benicio Del Toro seemed to have been possessed by Keanu Reeves and Sir Tony Hopkins apparently only took his part because he was behind on his Bentley payments or something; in an uncharacteristically lackadaisical performance, his delivery couldn't have been flatter if he actually walked around his scenes reading from a script in his left hand.

On the upside, there was plenty of eye candy, lots of werewolf-tearing-things-up action, and guns. Lots of guns. If you like underlever heavy double rifles so much that you thought they were cheated out of a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in The Ghost and the Darkness, you'll be happy. What gun for werewolf? A sidehammer Rodda 10-bore with silver solids, of course. Oh, and Agent Elrond shows up and does a good job as a Scotland Yard inspector: "You werewolves are a disease. You are a cancer of this planet, and we are the cure..."

If you're a huge fan of werewolf movies or Victorian costume pieces full of Webleys, Martinis, and great big hunting rifles, it's a must; otherwise you're not missing much.

23 comments:

  1. I have to agree with all of your points. The plot was predictable, and Anthony Hopkins' role was not one of his best. That being said, I do so enjoy Victorian era English firearms, particularly the big sporting doubles.

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  2. One further comment as regards "Agent Elrod". There's only one of him this time ;)

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  3. Great, it's full of homo-Webley lovers! Yeah, my spidey sense said the movie was full of suck and blow. It looks like it was dead on. Thanks again for making sure I don't waste two hours of my life.

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  4. Netflix. They should have included one long scene of Nazi werewolves being machine-gunned by rockers who had frantically melted down their goth girlfriends silver bling to replace the bullets for their 1918 Browning. The girlfriends, wearing only tatts and black victoria secrets would do security for the gun position with 1921 Thompsons and .45 Colts. They couldn't KILL the Nazi werewolves but they could knock the back while the rockers changed belts on the Brownings.

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  5. And, his hair was not quite so perfect this time.

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  6. The Goth girlfriends kick the last Nazi werewolf to death with clunky Doc Martens that have silver toe-guards as Del Toro flees. It brings the audience to their feet in tears.

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  7. The Goth/Nazi werewolf movie sounds like a good remake of An American Werewolf in London, although movie makers sorta already tried the concept (minus Nazis) in An American Werewolf in Paris.

    I would like to see a werewolf movie where the human misery of Lawrence Talbot, a decent fellow who hates that he is killing people without being able to exert any self control, once again becomes the main driver of the plot.

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  8. Re: Goth/Nazi werewolf movie.

    I am old. I remember when MTV actually played music videos. Pretty much every third video had that level of kickassery, and better music than anything I've heard so far this century. Gods walked the Earth in those days, but that was a long time ago.

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  9. I DO like werewolf movies and I thought it was a waste of my time. The only scenes I liked were the ones in the asylum.

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  10. The classy, well-coiffed werewolves are all in London...Ahwoooooo! AT

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  11. To quote the song, Tam, you -- HUNH! -- draw blood.

    M

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  12. Watched the trailer. Yes, for a Purdey and Sons back action underlever bore gun, I will watch it, but it'll be a red box.

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  13. The Ghost and the Darkness. Wow.

    A truely trick movie, despite that little weasel Douglass. Did you know that in reality both of the maneaters were dispatched with .303 Enfields? One would assume using the big 215 grain softpoint, but I don't know.

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  14. I think the best werewolf movie (n)ever made has been outlined in comments here...

    Just for S&Gs I hooked the VCR up... VCR. Vee Cee Are, that's what we had before DVDs. Kids. Sheesh.

    Where was I? Oh,. yeah, I hooked the VCR up to the stereo's audio output and played Ghost and the Darkness, spooked the hell out of every cat in the neighborhood... Not to mention the dogs.

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  17. "If you're a huge fan of werewolf movies or Victorian costume pieces full of Webleys, Martinis, and great big hunting rifles, it's a must; otherwise you're not missing much."

    In other words: I'm in.

    Funny thing-- not 15 minutes ago, the girls and I finished watching An American Werewolf In London, and it still holds up, I'm happy to report. My girls were intrigued about British police who had no guns, to deal with the werewolf in Picadilly Circus. I found it amusing that the movie had the responding rifle squad methodically loading their magazines for their FNs (oops, they call 'em L1A1 SLRs) while en route to the werewolf.

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  18. Okay, so I'm figuring the deal with the silver bullets is that they're silver, not whatever caliber they are, right?

    So wouldn't silver .22LR work as well as anything else? You could carry a shitload of them, and they'd be cheap (well, compared to other silver bullets).

    And do they have to be pure silver (melted from a cross or whatever)? Is there a cheaper alloy that would work just as well?

    Seriously, these are the sorts of things we ought to know in advance, and not at the last minute.

    Because if, say, .177 airgun pellets (or even BBs) work as well as big bore rounds, then that's where I'm going.

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  19. I'd have to assume you wanted you some stopping power,and that the silver was more of a "curare" thing to keep said werewolf from recovering from his wounds.

    When you have dangerous game headed toward you, you want stopping power.

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  20. I thought Sir Larry was channeling Maria Ouspenskaya just a tad.

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  21. The nazi werewolf comments made me think of Dead Snow (which is a nazi zombie movie, from norway, and hillarious).

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  22. Still beat the hell out of every damn Pirates of the Caribbean flick...

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