By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
Benicio and Joe put the “Goth” back in Gothic with their old school meets the new ultra-violence remake of the horror classic, “The Wolfman.”
Joe “Jumanji” Johnston and his screenwriters have stripped much of the mystery out of this tale of an English actor (Benicio Del Toro) who is once bitten, twice ravenous. Many of the beheadings and dismemberments (and don’t forget disembowelings) happen in front of an entire moonstruck encampment, village or asylum. But it’s well cast, well-acted and, in its own gory way, fun.
Del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, an Americanized matinee idol (circa 1891) who drops Poor Yorick’s skull (we see him as “Hamlet”) to dash home to Talbot Hall, where his brother has disappeared. His brother’s fetching fiance (the fetching Emily Blunt) summoned him. But he is, alas, too late. Brother’s dead. And Dad, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins, spot on), isn’t grieving. He’s moving on, pretending not to buy into the villagers of Blackmoor’s theory that this is the latest slaughter at the hands of a werewolf.