It's either going to be really good or really bad, but whatever "The Wolfman" is, it'll be well worth watching. Rehasing beloved Victorian tales has become popular in recent years ("Sweeney Todd," "Sherlock Holmes"), but they have normally been rehashed by experimental, (dare I say ironic?) filmmakers who prize a good time over a faithful rendering of source material. "The Wolfman" looks like it might be truer to form for its classic story of the werewolf, which is a good thing considering the fact that the werewolf is probably the archetypal Victorian monster. And as director Joe Johnston can tell you, having worked as an art director on all three of the archetype-heavy original "Star Wars" films, straying from our collective unconscious is not normally a good idea (or a good way to make money). Johnston has had a spotty career as director -- he butchered "Jurassic Park III" in 2001, but then made up for it with the smart, culturally dynamic and entertaining "Hidalgo" three years later -- which just confirms the first sentence of the paragraph that you are currently reading. Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving star, but who are we kidding? This isn't going to be about acting. It's going to be about how impressively Johnston can turn a handsome, Academy Award winning actor into a werewolf in front of our very eyes. And how many chills he can send up our spine like a damp English fog. I don't personally find the previews to be chilling (the ultimate compliment for Victorian horror), but I do find them entertaining, and perhaps that's all it will take to get audiences howling at the moon.
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