We're in the January doldrums for movies, the vast, desert landscape where only B-movies, bad movies, and lesser movies come out. That, plus the Oscar hopefuls finally arrive in more places than one or two theaters in New York and L.A. I'm not exactly sure why the "big" movies only come out in the summer and Fall. I'm guessing it's because Hollywood never seemed to make money in January and February with new releases. When a lot of the country is in a deep freeze, though, wouldn't you think they'd want to release some blockbusters? After all, you can't really go outside and do anything, plus the sun sets at 5 PM every day. Wouldn't it make sense that more people would want to go to the movies? We'll never know these days, as the theaters are bereft of anything worth going to see. There have been big movies that have arrived in January and February of course, but they're few and far between and usually movies that have surprised at the box office. The #1 movie opening of all time for January is American Sniper, and that was an out-of-left-field blockbuster. The top 3 openings of all time for February are all Marvel films, but all Marvel films with superheroes that aren't the big ones: Black Panther, Deadpool, and Ant-Man.
The biggest movie that's coming out in January or February this year is Captain America: Brave New World. That's a big time film in the sense that's in a Marvel movie, it cost over $300 million to make, and it stars a real movie star, Harrison Ford. It's not a Batman or Spider-Man movie, though, and it features a fairly new, untested Captain America.
Besides that, we're pretty much left with the usual trash to clutter movie theaters. Rising out of the stink, at least on paper, is Wolf Man. Leigh Whannell co-created the Saw franchise and the Insidious franchise. He's one of the go-to-guys for making money at the box office with scary movies. Right before the pandemic shut everything down, he had a hit with critics and at the box office with The Invisible Man, his modern take on the classic H.G. Wells story that starred Elisabeth Moss. Apparently he's going to run through making modern takes on all of the classic monsters, as he's back co-writing and directing Wolf Man.
Obviously, there's a million werewolf movies out there. There was a movie just released called Werewolves that showed up in theaters with literally no TV commercials, fanfare, publicity, or idea of where it came from. You can go order it On Demand right now and probably have a blast because it's not that hard to make a fun, scary, entertaining werewolf flick.
The best of the bunch is An American Werewolf in London, but the Lon Cheney original is great and I loved the The Wolfman that starred Benicio Del Toro (granted, nobody else loved that Benicio one). This new one is a modern/realistic take on the classic beast. There's no silver bullets. The wolf man mostly stands on two legs like a person, isn't covered in fur, and doesn't have a snout. There's no shots of a full moon. Actually, this is kind of like that non-zombie movie, 28 Days Later, where it was definitely a zombie movie but actually it wasn't, it was just a virus that made people crazy. Wolf Man isn't exactly a werewolf movie; if you get bit and change, you basically just turn into a crazy person with rabies.
The beginning of the film is pretty great. Christopher Abbot is the star. He's fantastic in pretty much everything because he's good at playing a regular, loveable guy. That makes it easy for the audience to identify with his character no matter what he's doing. And the prologue features him as a boy (played by Zac Chandler) going hunting with his domineering, oft-kilter father. They're hunting deer but soon get startled by someone or something in the woods. They get chased up into one of those tree stands where the menacing thing is about to attack but retreats suddenly. Later on, the boy hears his father on the CB radio talking to someone and mentions that he's seen "it" and that "it's real."
Cut to years later and Abbot's character, Blake, is a grown man in the city with a wife, Julia Garner, and a daughter, Matilda Firth. We find out that Blake's dad went missing in the woods and was pronounced dead. Blake has to go head back to the Oregon wilderness where his dad lived and clean the place out. This sets up the typical cabin-in-the-woods setting where all hell is about to break loose.
There is action in Wolf Man and there is some good suspense. Leigh Whannell, who's been around the block with creating jump scares and tension, is definitely a master at this. There are problems, though. First off, there isn't much to this movie. At 90 minutes, there's not a lot of plot or characters or even dialogue. And usually when watching a werewolf movie you want to see the transformation. Will it be gnarly? Gruesome? Just silly, fake-looking special f/x? But this isn't really a werewolf movie. Besides growing some fangs and having his hair fall out, the wolf is more man. If you can get over that, the movie is at least entertaining. The majority of it takes place in one night, so not a lot happens. The movie starts well enough and has a few exciting sequences like the truck crash. I did love the windshield wiper reveal shot and the bloody bear trap scene. Both very cool moments in an otherwise average film.
In the dead zone winter months for Hollywood, watching a fairly entertaining werewolf picture that's not great but at least watchable will pass the time until the big guns like the new Avatar, Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and Superman movies come out later this year. It's something. **1/2
