11:03:31 AM Will Edmondson: Last week, our wonderful readers had a choice between two "spooky, scary" movies, Tara. And they chose to eschew Marty Scorsese's "Shutter Island" in favor of "The Wolfman." Your thoughts on this choice?
11:04:03 AM Tara Ariano: It's not the one I would have predicted, that is for sure.
11:05:58 AM Will Edmondson: Well, yes, and I was initially concerned about this recap. I thought it was going to be four "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" jokes and maybe a comment or two about how Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro do look rather "wolfish." But there is so much more to talk about!

11:07:57 AM Tara Ariano: First, let's talk about the setting: Blackmoor, England, 1891. Ben Talbot has been mysteriously killed, so his fiancéee, Gwen (Emily Blunt), writes to his brother, Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), to come back to his ancestral home after what seems to have been an absence of so many years that he's completely lost his English accent, and replaced it with a Mexican-American one!
11:08:20 AM Will Edmondson: Wow, I had completely forgotten about all of that.
11:09:26 AM Tara Ariano: How could you forget the contortions they went through to explain why this actor was so unconvincing as a Briton! There was also the part where we see that his late mother was a beautiful woman of Spanish or possibly Gypsy heritage.
11:11:28 AM Will Edmondson: This might surprise you, but I think it was pretty easy to forget all that! Not that it really mattered to me though, because the downfall of this movie wasn't that Benicio Del Toro was unconvincingly British. The downfall of this movie was that Benicio Del Toro thought "The Wolfman" was going to be much better than it was.

11:13:15 AM Tara Ariano: Agreed. And the information this morning from our esteemed colleague Chris Bernier that the helm was taken from original director Mark Romanek ("One Hour Photo") and handed off to Joe Johnston ("Jumanji") may explain why Del Toro and Blunt thought they were in a serious Gothic drama, while Hugo Weaving and Anthony Hopkins seemed pretty sure they were in a campy B-movie.
11:15:31 AM Will Edmondson: That makes sense. And sense, coincidentally, is something that a lot of the people in this movie could've used.
11:16:34 AM Tara Ariano: Do we need to say more about the plot? Because here it is: Lawrence gets bitten by a werewolf, and pretty soon, he's wolfing out. And by the way, it was hard to tell how much time the story spanned because IT WAS ALWAYS A FULL MOON.
11:17:16 AM Will Edmondson: Right, and considering that the moon cycles every month or so, this movie took place over approximately three years. (That's an exaggeration. BUT NOT THAT MUCH OF ONE.)
11:17:35 AM Tara Ariano: Seriously.

11:19:48 AM Will Edmondson: But the movie couldn't decide what it was at times. There were great, stylized shots of Industrial Revolution-era London, mixed with the family's home, which looked like a combination of the house from "The Addams Family," Wayne Manor from "Batman," and the Museum of Natural History as depicted in "Night in the Museum."
11:20:35 AM Tara Ariano: Also: the moody, foggy light everywhere (indoors and out, regardless of the time of day) kind of disguised how very gory the action scenes were, but not really. It was rated R, and it showed.
11:22:50 AM Will Edmondson: Right. This movie really should've been called "The Final Wolf-stination"
11:23:14 AM Tara Ariano: Yeah. We saw lots of Rick Baker's versions of guts.

11:24:25 AM Will Edmondson: That's not to say that everything about "The Wolfman" was bad, though. Anthony Hopkins was a pretty great badass, even if his seemingly superhuman strength seemed a bit odd for a 72-year-old guy.
11:24:36 AM Tara Ariano: I just assumed he had monster strength.
11:25:12 AM Will Edmondson: It's a question, because he did seem to also walk with a cane all the time. Another highlight was Weaving, who -- and I use the term lovingly -- was quite a magnificent bastard.
11:25:59 AM Tara Ariano: He walked with a cane because it had a SWORD in it! But yes, Hugo Weaving was the best. I had forgotten he was even in it, so when he showed up I literally applauded. HE would have been a better Wolfman!
11:27:29 AM Will Edmondson: Why would you need the cane sword when he also walked everywhere with a shotgun? That's all I'm saying. And yes, readers, when Tara started clapping in the theater, I felt embarrassed, alone, and a little sad.
11:28:03 AM Tara Ariano: I feel bad for you that you can't experience joy like I do (at the sight of Hugo Weaving).
11:28:17 AM Will Edmondson: Now you know how I feel about Megan Fox.

11:29:26 AM Will Edmondson: But I liked Weaving too, and so it brings me great pleasure to spoil the end of the movie for everyone and give them this news: At the end of the film, Weaving has been bitten too. We assume that this means he'll become a werewolf soon after, making an inevitable sequel, "Wolfin' Out," an inevitability. Last night I even took it one step further and suggested that it should be scored with the hits of Billy Joel's career.
11:31:19 AM Tara Ariano: We had lots of ideas that would have improved the movie.
11:31:34 AM Will Edmondson: Yeah, like sneaking in a lot of booze. But overall, it was solid, it existed, and it was fine. I'd never see it again, but the only part that insulted my intelligence was when Del Toro splashed water from the River Thames on his face...in turn-of-the-century London.
11:33:39 AM Tara Ariano: So much spent coal, all in his pores. No wonder he looked so bad.
11:34:41 AM Will Edmondson: Well...coal would be the least of his problems, because the Thames was in rough shape back then. My favorite history name ever -- "The Great Stink" -- happened around then. This is not the forum to elaborate; Wikipedia can do that for me.
11:34:50 AM Tara Ariano: That's true, I forgot about cholera.

11:36:02 AM Will Edmondson: Anyway, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about one final thing, and that's the wolf fight. Because I was PUMPED about that wolf fight.
11:37:20 AM Tara Ariano: Right. So the other spoiler is that Anthony Hopkins, who plays Lawrence's father, is ALSO a werewolf, and toward the end of the movie, he and Lawrence get into it. Helpfully, they have Hopkins tear his clothes off so we can tell them apart -- shirts vs. pelts.
11:37:37 AM Will Edmondson: YEAH! WOLF FIGHT!
11:37:58 AM Tara Ariano: And Wolf-Hopkins hangs in pretty well for an old man, as you said.
11:39:11 AM Will Edmondson: Especially when you consider that Wolf-Hopkins was 504 years old in dog years.