The Wolfman
Universal Pictures | Release Date: February 12, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
43
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
19
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Boxoffice MagazineRay Greene
Benicio Del Toro looks even more like Lon Chaney Sr. than Chaney Jr. did, and he’s a far better actor than the previous Wolf Man. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
If you're going to pick the werewolf as your favorite monster, there's a lot to appreciate in the shaggy, imperfect but still fun new version of The Wolf Man. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
The movie plays like a missed opportunity, with its by-the-numbers scares and a story that feels disjointed, hurried in some places, slow in others. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This is fairly satisfying, particularly a ghoulish episode in a Victorian insane asylum. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Holleman
Falls into that middling ground of horror film: neither scary enough to be exciting nor campy enough to be amusing. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
A few stray livers and severed heads aside, this is a monster too polite for its own good. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
What emerges is a banal horror film and a tepid action-adventure. Read full review
50
NPRMark Jenkins
Unfortunately, brutality is about all this update of 1941's The Wolf Man can do well. Mutilations, decapitations and disembowelments are handled with aplomb in the first R-rated film from director Joe Johnston (Jumanji, Jurassic Park III). But everything that doesn't involve gore feels like an afterthought. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The root problem with The Wolfman is that it's a hybrid. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
The movie's best special effect hands down is Anthony Hopkins as Talbot the Elder, who flounces around in a tiger stole and utters his lines with such a delicious madman twinkle you might want to snack on him yourself (ahhh-ROOooh). Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)James Adams
An ill-considered, utterly unnecessary remake of the 1941 pulp classic "The Wolf Man" starring Lon Chaney Jr. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Johnston understands everything about old-fashioned werewolf movies except why they were scary. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Not bad enough to be considered a camp, guilty pleasure, it's more of a dull, defanged dirge with the reliably intriguing Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins turning in oddly disaffected performances. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The constant repetition of these shock tactics, in lieu of genuine suspense, makes The Wolfman feel cheap, despite the vast amounts obviously spent on Rick Heinrichs' opulent production design, the extensive visual effects, the more-than-effective special makeup effects, Milena Canonero's luxurious costumes, Danny Elfman's insistent score and the tony cast. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
There's plenty of doom, gloom, and outright despair on hand here but very little genuine human emotion. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
In this shaggy-dog version the wolfman’s story is both gratuitously bloody and, finally, bloodless. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Here's the surprise of the new incarnation of The Wolfman, starring Benicio Del Toro -- there isn't one. No bite either, or humor, or camp. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The Wolfman isn't crazy enough to be fun or multilayered enough to be touching. It's impossible to have any real feeling for this anguished beastie. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'Hara
An uneven tone and the feeling of too many cooks mars the finished product, but there are moments of beauty and real terror. Read full review
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