vrijdag 6 februari 2015

Wolves (2014)

Summary
The coming-of-age story of Cayden Richards. Forced to hit the road after the murder of his parents, Cayden wanders, lost, without purpose... Until he meets a certifiable lunatic named Wild Joe, who sets him on a path to the ominous town of Lupine Ridge, to hunt down the truths of his history. But in the end, who's really hunting whom?

Genre : Horror
Country : France/Canada

Cast :
Jason Momoa : Connor
Lucas Till : Cayden Richards
Merritt Patterson : Angelina

Director : David Hayter

My opinion

Life is like an onion.
That's what they say.
The more you peel it back,
the more it makes you cry.
Especially when
you're afflicted.

It's obvious that everyone is looking for that gold mine to produce something similar like "Twilight". They even got help from David Hayter (writer of "X-men") and miraculously they found another theme. Imagine a brainstorming session at TF1 International : "Hey, Twilight used vampires . What if we use a pack of werewolves instead ? And a handsome young guy as a key player who meets a fresh, young wench somewhere in a remote place ? Maybe it's the start of a brand new series that will be so successful, teens will stumble over each other to see it !" ( followed by applause, cheers and heartfelt hugs). After watching this horribly acted and meaningless predictable story about an ancient tribe of werewolves who've retreated in a commune where they eventually compete among each other, I recommend to store these plans. Just to avoid a financial hangover.

Clayden Richards (Lucas Till) has a fairly turbulent puberty. For instance he dreams about werewolves at night. His parents blame this on his raging hormones that play tricks on him. However, everything is going really well for him. He has wonderful and caring parents, a gang of friends and the prettiest girl in school. He is a quarterback and has the appearance of an Adonis. Most teenage girls would melt just looking at him. Until he beats up an opponent during a match and while making out with his girlfriend, the beast in him bursts out. Literally. He flees from the place where he grew up and on his trip some guy called Wild Joe sents him out to the deserted village Lupine Ridge. Of course the place is swarming with werewolves. As you can see, the name of the village "Lupin" is distracted from the Latin word lupinus. Very subtle. What follows is the revealing of Clayden's past and his relation to Connor, a kind of alpha werewolf who rules the place.

Nothing new under the werewolf-moon and at times it's downright ridiculous. You really can't say it's exciting and it reminded me of "Teen Wolf" with Michael J. Fox. Only the latter I actually could appreciate. At times the transformation of the villagers looked successful. But mostly I thought I was watching the Muppet show with some wearing carnaval costumes. However, I hope the makers weren't serious because I couldn't suppress a smile. I still don't know whether this was a smile because it all looked ridiculous or because that shown on the screen was actually meant to be funny. Some performances were pitifully poor. Lucas Till has the charisma of a flowerpot. Merritt Patterson looks delicious (useful for the werewolf Clayden) and sweet. Only Jason Momoa could convince me. But probably his huge impressive stature and his deep penetrating eyes caused this. The best acting performance was Stephen McHattie as the cooperative farmer who of course knows the whole history of Clayden's family.

"Wolves" is as thrilling as the stretched elastic in the underpants of a grandmother. Not really exciting. Even the presence of the beautiful Patterson and the sensual scene with Till doesn't help. I can still remember me seeing a fragment of a black and white movie when I was young, with someone turning into a werewolf because of the shrill sound of a school bell. That scared the crap out of me and for days I had nightmares (mind you I was only 12 years or so). "Wolves" will only keep me from sleeping because I'll be laughing irrepressible. And despite the sometimes bloody splatter scenes, you can hardly call it horror. It's also known that a person who's mutated into a werewolf, won't make use of his natural voice ! The term "Popcorn-teenager-horror" for tar sensitive souls will fit well. I praised "Wer" and thought it might be a revival of the werewolf genre. This film is quite the opposite.