Well, Jack Nicholson is no Lawrence Talbot. In a way that's too bad because the original wolfman was trashy fun. This one is more ambitious and expensive, and it kind of loses its way.
The first half is a treat, and is witty too. Nicholson plays his schleppy character, someone without daring or imagination. It's no wonder that his wife is bored with him and his boss is firing him. Not that he's doing a bad job as editor-in-chief of a prominent New York publisher, just that he shows no guts.
After being bitten by a wolf one night, he begins to notice slight changes in his appearance and his character. (He checks it out with a doctor but otherwise treats these changes kind of nonchalantly, if you ask me.) For one thing, he sleeps most of the day and works best at night. His sexual appetite returns and he begins to get frisky around his wife again. It would be interesting to know a little bit more about the details of THAT. He can smell alcohol on someone's breath from several feet away. He can hear conversations on the other side of a window across a wide hallway. He walks more quickly, speaks more forcefully, and is overall more animated, so to speak. He even gets a neat-looking growth of new hair across his balding forehead, and he as he pauses to look admiringly at himself in the mirror, patting his belly with satisfaction, beaming at his new hair, he remarks, "And by the way, I'm not only the president of the Men's Hair Club. I'm also a member." His level of aggression rises too. He outwits the nefarious subordinate (James Spader) who's been plotting to replace him, and he blackmails his boss into rehiring him and giving him even more authority. And after sloughing off his unfaithful wife, he meets and mates with the boss's lovely daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer), who looks half feral on her own.
The scheming and exploration of Nicholson's new personality are the best-written part of the movie. The rest of it gets kind of screwy, as if the writers had begun to run out of steam. Nobody seems able to determine what kind of movie this is supposed to be. Nicholson's wolfiness turns dangerous. He may have ripped the throat out of his errant wife during a gibbous moon. We KNOW he's chased down a deer and eaten the thing alive because he wakes up covered with blood, in an unpleasant scene.
After he bites Spader, Spader begins to turn into a werewolf too, only uglier and meaner than Nicholson's werewolf. The two werewolves get into a dogfight over Pfeiffer and Spader is about to win when Pfeiffer appears on the scene and shoots him and kills him. (Where'd she get the silver bullets from -- the Lone Ranger?) Nicholson has now turned permanent werewolf and after a few friendly growls of thanks in Pfeiffer's direction he hustles off alone to join the rest of the werewolves in the forest. Somebody -- I forget who -- has also bitten Pfeiffer, which is understandable, and then she begins to morph into a wolf and leaves to join Nicholson in the woods where, presumably, they will live happily ever after and produce litter after litter of pups doggy-style.
I can't help it if the second half of the movie sounds a little nutty. It has suddenly turned into a half-hearted horror movie with slashing fangs, a woman threatened with rape, Nicholson shaking frantically at the bars of his cage, a dead body in a pool, and similar inanities.
None of the performances are at fault. Nicholson is pretty convincing as he gradually morphs. And Spader is great as the loyal friend who turns out to be a backstabbing phony. Too bad their efforts are put into a scenario that devolves into something that makes less sense than Lawrence Talbot's predicament.
The first half is a treat, and is witty too. Nicholson plays his schleppy character, someone without daring or imagination. It's no wonder that his wife is bored with him and his boss is firing him. Not that he's doing a bad job as editor-in-chief of a prominent New York publisher, just that he shows no guts.
After being bitten by a wolf one night, he begins to notice slight changes in his appearance and his character. (He checks it out with a doctor but otherwise treats these changes kind of nonchalantly, if you ask me.) For one thing, he sleeps most of the day and works best at night. His sexual appetite returns and he begins to get frisky around his wife again. It would be interesting to know a little bit more about the details of THAT. He can smell alcohol on someone's breath from several feet away. He can hear conversations on the other side of a window across a wide hallway. He walks more quickly, speaks more forcefully, and is overall more animated, so to speak. He even gets a neat-looking growth of new hair across his balding forehead, and he as he pauses to look admiringly at himself in the mirror, patting his belly with satisfaction, beaming at his new hair, he remarks, "And by the way, I'm not only the president of the Men's Hair Club. I'm also a member." His level of aggression rises too. He outwits the nefarious subordinate (James Spader) who's been plotting to replace him, and he blackmails his boss into rehiring him and giving him even more authority. And after sloughing off his unfaithful wife, he meets and mates with the boss's lovely daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer), who looks half feral on her own.
The scheming and exploration of Nicholson's new personality are the best-written part of the movie. The rest of it gets kind of screwy, as if the writers had begun to run out of steam. Nobody seems able to determine what kind of movie this is supposed to be. Nicholson's wolfiness turns dangerous. He may have ripped the throat out of his errant wife during a gibbous moon. We KNOW he's chased down a deer and eaten the thing alive because he wakes up covered with blood, in an unpleasant scene.
After he bites Spader, Spader begins to turn into a werewolf too, only uglier and meaner than Nicholson's werewolf. The two werewolves get into a dogfight over Pfeiffer and Spader is about to win when Pfeiffer appears on the scene and shoots him and kills him. (Where'd she get the silver bullets from -- the Lone Ranger?) Nicholson has now turned permanent werewolf and after a few friendly growls of thanks in Pfeiffer's direction he hustles off alone to join the rest of the werewolves in the forest. Somebody -- I forget who -- has also bitten Pfeiffer, which is understandable, and then she begins to morph into a wolf and leaves to join Nicholson in the woods where, presumably, they will live happily ever after and produce litter after litter of pups doggy-style.
I can't help it if the second half of the movie sounds a little nutty. It has suddenly turned into a half-hearted horror movie with slashing fangs, a woman threatened with rape, Nicholson shaking frantically at the bars of his cage, a dead body in a pool, and similar inanities.
None of the performances are at fault. Nicholson is pretty convincing as he gradually morphs. And Spader is great as the loyal friend who turns out to be a backstabbing phony. Too bad their efforts are put into a scenario that devolves into something that makes less sense than Lawrence Talbot's predicament.