I wanted to like this movie much more than I did. I think Spike Jones and Dave Eggers did a good job of making a perfect book into a movie, but I couldn’t really get absorbed in the story. It was a very visually stunning movie, yet not engaging.
Were I elected president, I believe my first act–after passing a resolution to encourage more production and consumption of the vegetable kale–would be to pass a law limiting mockumentries to a maximum run time of 45 minutes, based on the fact that the joke gets old after that point. This movie would have benefited tremendously from this legislation as it had a good premise, but just kept going on and on and on. I got bored.
If you only see one MST3K* movie in your lifetime, let this be the one. Some of the humor is dated (mid 9os) but I have not laughed so hard in years. The following make this movie so bad it’s good: bad hair, incredibly bad acting, uneven story line, awful continuity, and the unintelligible English spoken by a pretty, but not understandable, actress.
I can’t help myself, here is Julian Kennedy’s review from IMDB:
Werewolf: 2 out of 10: Wow, this is a classic mess. First off, it “stars” Joe Estevez. Yes, Martin Sheen’s brother. Star of some of the worst films ever made. (A shocking 191 films according to his IMDb page with a discouraging 13 still waiting to be released.) Maybe one of the reasons he can star in so many films is that he only works for a few days at a time. In Werewolf, he disappears without explanation a third of the way through the film and was barely in the movie to begin with. However, I guess when your cast consists of non-English speaking Eurotrash, Estevez seems like a draw.
Speaking of the rest of the cast, we have Jorge Rivero whose hair changes every scene and is the most interesting character in the film (The hair not Jorge). Richard Lynch who plays the male lead with all the charisma of soggy toast. Adrianna Miles who I thought was two different actresses. (One character lives in the house with the gun toting Santa Claus where she types in panties. The other character has never been to the house and lusts after Lynch.) Turns out the script was more confused than I and it is the same girl.
Adrianna Miles is certainly attractive and has those nice deer in headlight eyes but her grasp of the English language is tenuous at best and she simply cannot wrap her lips around the word werewolf. (It comes out wahr-wil, wahrwilf, wearwaollf etc) Speaking of confusing, the “werewolf” appears as a large bear, a broken bat puppet, an elderly version of teen wolf (driving a compact car no less), and something else from the depths of cinematic hell. At no time does it actually look like a werewolf. I could go on for hours (The moon stays full through the entire picture we are talking two weeks in a row minimum.) But I will let Mike and the Bots take over.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 10 episode 4: 10 out of 10: This is simply one of the best riffing jobs Mike and the bots have ever accomplished. Obviously, this is the only way to see the film.
I didn’t expect to like this movie at all. But aside from the somewhat awful acting, I am happy to say that this movies is beautifully filmed, from the first not-at-all-grounded-in-reality high school girl’s locker room scene to the ending carnage. It was very pretty to watch and I say excellent job, Mario Tosi!
This movie gets points not only for its incredibly clever nature, but also for illustrating the inexplicable phenomenon of grown men* wearing normal t-shirts under their work button-down shirts instead of buying undershirts. It looks dumb and I don’t understand why it continues to happen. This is a different kind of romantic comedy as explained by the tag line** and I laughed hard at the first words on the first screen and audibly gasped at one part in this nearly perfect movie.
*the same grown men who wear normal t-shirts under their work button downs would probably enjoy this movie very, very much. After you see it together you can perhaps go and buy some undershirts. They are available everywhere.
**”This is not a love story. This is a story about love.”
Bechdel score. Two women: yes! Who talk to each other: yes! About something besides a man: Yes! Amazing!
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/julie_and_julia_ver2.html
I’m not interested in football or the plight of 1960s all-male ivy league school sports programs. I am a fan of a well told story. This movie was one and you should watch it.
Bechdel score. Two women: ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I didn’t expect to like this movie as much as I did, but there were strong performances by everyone except “Aunt Kelly” who I found distracting. I wasn’t expecting a plot twist, but there it was, near the end, to my surprise. Bring a hankey; there are many, many tear-jerking scenes.
Bechdel score. Two women: yes. Who talk to each other: yes! About something besides a man: YES! Holy Cow!
There are very funny parts and good things in this movie, but ultimately the middle is way too long. You also have to like boy humor. This movie left me with this question: when you are friends with a movie/tv star and you hang out with them, do you always have to watch their movies, as depicted in this film?
Bechdel score. Two women: nope.
(this is getting ridiculous)
