Too bad. I'm not sure he was the right guy fo the job or not. I liked One Hour Photo, but while Never Let Me Go has gorgeous cinematography and amazing acting...it is just trying too hard to be soulfully artistic and it comes off a bit silly.
The Wolfman movie we got is...a disappointment. I watched the DC again last week as one of the Halloween films I do (along with Coppola's Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, AWWIL and the old Universals). Visually it is stunning. The cast is great (though surprisingly Del Toro is the only one who has a few stiff line readings and this was his pet project!). It just doesn't quite work.
The first act in the DC is actually quite good at introducing this world and having Lawrence go home for his brother and then going to the bar, etc. The funeral is haunting. But when it's supposed to get scary is when it just doesn't work. The movie never really builds tension. The werewolf attacks are a lot of fun to see and very cool. But they're certainly not scary. I'm not sure if Johnson just wanted us to be exhilerated, which he succeeded at. But that then makes the buildups even less scary. Never mind the jump cuts.
And then that whole third act...the ending could have been so much better. (Cough-kill dad with silver cane to pay off its introduction, having Lawrence and Gwen kill each other-Cough).
Oh well. It is still an entertaining movie to watch in October. But nowhere near the classic it could have been.
