When was the last time there was a good werewolf movie? Was it An American Werewolf in London? Has it really been 33 years since a person changing into a wolf was interesting? Well, David Hayter, screenwriter for the first two X-Men films and Watchmen, makes his directorial debut an attempt to revive an idea that scared audiences for decades… And he fails miserably. Wolves is easily one of the worst films I have seen this year, and it unfortunately never gets into “so bad it’s good” territory. It just remains dull from start to finish.
Cayden Richards (Lucas Till) has it all. He is the quarterback of his high school football team. He has a gorgeous girlfriend. He also has the ability to change into a wolf. This is a problem which, as of late, has gotten rather out of hand. And by out of hand I mean he attacks his girlfriend when they are about to have sex and he kills his parents. So, he high tails it out of town and stumbles across a fellow werewolf named Wild Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson) who points him to a town where his questions about this curse could be answered. The town is the not-too-subtly named Lupine Ridge, which operates outside the law thanks to a mafia of wolves led by the not-too-subtly named Connory Slaughter (Jason Momoa).
I knew something was off about this movie almost immediately. Cayden seemingly just started grappling with turning into a wolf, but he was born with this ability. Why is it now that these problems are starting to get bad? This is something we never learn. So, why was he not a volatile kid, turning into a puppy wolf? In a dramatic story, this kind of stuff is important to buying into the rest of the film.
Adding to the dullness is Lucas Till in the lead. You may remember him as Havok in the two most recent X-Men films, and if you don’t, that totally makes sense. He has zero charisma on screen. His face is made of stone, his eyes are dead, and his voice makes Steven Wright sound enthusiastic. Having him carry your movie is a massive mistake, particularly if the goal is a character arc (like a protagonist should have).
There is nothing new here. Cayden has to avenge the death of his parents. He is an outsider in a small town. He falls for the town bartender (Merritt Patterson), who is unsurprisingly promised to Connory. He finds a new father figure. The list of clichés this film hits is large, which would be fine if there was a new spin on it, but there is not. It is a cliché presented as a cliché.
This would all be fine if the film was fun. It is not. It takes itself incredibly seriously, and when it does try to inject some camp, it feels awkward. Unearned comedy is one of the most painful things to sit through, and this film has numerous instances of that. The rest is very sullen and panders to cheap drama akin to something on the CW network. The effects do not help making the film any more fun either, as they are not good enough to be convincing, but not bad enough to laugh at.
I was hoping if the film was not good, I would still have a decent time watching it. I love a good bad movie. Incompetence is enjoyable to me. That did not happen. Every passing second was sucking my life force away. I expect that with a vampire movie but not a werewolf movie. Jason Momoa (“Game of Thrones”, Conan) tries his best to be lively on screen, but it never recovers from its initial turgid state. No one cared about anything happening on screen, no more noticeable in the horrendously green screened driving scenes. I was shocked at how bad they looked, and they are supposed to be serious, guy on motorcycle moping scenes.
No one is going to see this movie, and that is perfectly fine with me. There is nothing in this film worth watching, and me writing this very negative review is all it deserves. It is very clear no one making this film had any investment in it, so why should I? There have been some great werewolf movies in the history of film, and I hope someone is able to make another good one. And if I want a “so bad it’s good” werewolf movie, I’ll stick with Curse of the Wolf by Len Kabasinski, which is one of the most curious bad movies I have ever seen.
