The Wolfman

Limping out of the kennel after a troubled production, The Wolfman is not top dog with most pundits. But while this 21st century take on the man menaced by the curse of the moon doesn't eclipse Universal's 1941 original starring Lon Chaney Jr, it's not a total howler. For one thing, it gives film writers the world over an unrivalled opportunity to make a total dog's dinner of their reviews through the over-use of dog-related figures of speech.

There is little doubt in my mind that you couldn't hope to find an actor working today more suited to the role of reluctant lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot than Benicio Del Toro, with his melancholic bloodhound face and apparent lack of star vanity. His Lawrence Talbot is a helpless man and ultimately a loser, something most top-line stars just hate to play. Del Toro is happy for the audience to see him beg a woman (Emily Blunt) for help, and as if that weren't humiliation enough, he gets put through the wringer by two separate Sir Anthonys - the hammy one (Hopkins), as his brutal dad, and the thespy one (Sher), as the suitably callous head of a Victorian lunatic asylum. Del Toro is even prepared to be seen, post-wolf transformation, running around looking like Chewbacca on crystal meth.

Whether this conception of the Wolfman as a sensitive soul wrestling with the demon within was the right way to go for this particular script, with its enjoyable splurges of campy violence, is up for debate, but once they get going, the clawings and decapitations are executed with decent flair. The film looks great when it's not spattered in ketchup too - full marks to cinematographer Shelly Johnson who creates a suitable misty-gothic look for Victorian England, especially out on the Baskerville-esque moors. Visual cliches abound - spooky churches, wizened gypsies, a very local pub for very local people - but if anything they help signpost the story as the sweet horror hokum it is and should ever be.

The Wolfman also benefits from a cast of classy actors who mostly seem well aware that they're performing in a film with a certain camp value. Hugo Weaving deserves special mention for making great strides with little more than some splendid facial hair and a wry man-of-the-world demeanour. As the inspector called in to solve the case of the dead bodies with wolf-jaw shaped holes in them, he inhabits a potentially lacklustre role - as is, the camera is hungry for more from him. It's a shame, given all that is decent about it, that The Wolfman lacks genuine scares.