Wolfen | | Cast : | Albert Finney, Diane Venora | | Director : | Michael Wadleigh | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | July 24, 1981 | | DVD Released Date : | September 06, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Japanese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 08, 2005 | | Summary | Very odd | Content
 | I was pretty young the first time I saw Wolfen but I remember that my reaction was bewilderment. A lot of people either hated Wolfen or left the theater with a shrug. It is based on a fine book but something got lost on the way to the big screen.
Albert Finney is a terrific actor but he's wrong for this movie. He seems deeply uncomfortable in every single scene and I don't think it's just acting. The poor man is playing a New York City cop but his accent is all wrong. At best he sounds Canadian. On top of all this he mumbles his lines.
The female lead does an okay job but her main reason for being here is to give Finney something to look at and the wolves something pretty to menace. There's an out of the blue sex scene but mercifully it's shot through the wolf's eyes so the audience doesn't get to see a semi naked Finney full on and in color.
The only person who does well here was the late Gregory Hines, who plays a light hearted medical examiner. He gets killed of course but back when this movie was made the black guy always gets killed if not in the first reel then by the second.
Indians, particularly those in New York were not pleased with this film and I can't really blame them. Edward James Olmos is a good actor but he's no more Indian than Finney was and it was obvious. This casting was just as offensive as gettitng a white actor, spraying bronzer on him and sticking a black plaited wig on his head.
Now about the wolves. They aren't awesome in the least. It's just a pack of dogs. All of whom looked to me like they just needed a firm talking to and a milkbone. The ending was weak and Finney's characte seems just as befuddled as he was at the beginning. Also, the film fails because it preaches. Nobody wants to be preached at by a B movie. Ultimately, Wolfen is fascinating because it's so botched and it is fun to mock it but as a horror movie or even as suspense it doesn't cut the mustard. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 04, 2005 | | Summary | "Animals? They May be Gods" | Content
| "Wolfen" is the oddity of the three big werewolf films of 1981, which also includes "The Howling" (which is perhaps the greatest werewolf film of all time) and "An American Werewolf in London." Most people seem uncertain how to critique it because it wasn't what they were expecting (Is it even a werewolf film at all?), hence the very mixed reviews.
The first 90 minutes of "Wolfen" play like a "Dirty Harry" yarn (albeit without the action) in New York City with Albert Finney as the weary detective. The murders mount up and the evidence seems to point to... well, I can't give it away.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The first hour & a half has a very lazy drive to it. For this reason I understand WHY many people would rate the picture 4 Stars or even 3 Stars out of 5. Needless to say, people who have ADD won't like this flick.
WHAT WORKS: Despite the sluggishness, the film definitely has a lot of mood, eerie & captivating music, seriousness, a realistic vibe, good acting, excellent New York locations (especially the condemned slum areas) and Class A cinematography to warrant one's respect.
Regardless of all these good aspects, the film would have failed if there was no pay-off to the mounting mystery. Yet there's a powerful pay-off indeed: At the 90 minute mark Finney, half-dazed after the death of his buddy, lumbers into a Native American bar wherein the Indian cast members powerfully explain the mystery. This 5 minute scene is, believe it or not, one of the most captivating, surreal and potent scenes in all of cinema; everything works -- the music, dialogue, acting & casting. This sequence could have easily failed if everything wasn't just perfect, but it is. And, speaking of the Indians, Edward James Olmos is outstanding as the mysterious Native, who may or may not possess shape-shifting abilities.
The film wisely takes the "Jaws" route and doesn't reveal who or what the "Wolfen" are until the final half hour. Some have complained about the appearance of the wolfen, but I feel the fim-makers were quite successful; they look pretty scary to me and, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to run into them on a dark lit street, or even in broad daylight for that matter. Seriously, the film-makers did the best they could in the pre-CGI era in which the film was made.
I've heard the ending called everything from preposterous to dumb; yet aren't all such horror films preposterous by their very nature? I personally find the ending of "Wolfen" to be its greatest strength -- thought-provoking, atmospheric and powerful. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 12, 2005 | | Summary | 0.5 STARS: A very odd and boring movie | Content
| The movie "Wolfen" is very odd and boring. I did not like this movie. I did not think this movie was scary at all...I thought the wolf creatures looked pretty benign and I also thought the plot and storyline were pretty lame. I don't recommend this flick because this movie is just plain sorry. In fact, this movie is hardly worth a review other than to say that it stinks. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 25, 2005 | | Summary | 'Wolfen' not quite sure what it wants to be...... | Content
| At the risk of adding yet another "this movie was not like the book" review, I will point to "Jaws" as a movie that deviated somewhat from the book, but still maintained the horror and impending sense of doom that the novel skillfully imparted. "Wolfen", on the other hand, comes across as a heavy-handed and absurd treatise on the evils of overdeveloping land. Michael Wadleigh, director of "Woodstock", seems to want to let the world know that he's a tree-hugger and proud of it. While Whitley Streiber's excellent novel portrayed the wolfen as a super-intelligent race of hunters that systematically track down and destroy that which threatens their existence (mainly, Wilson and Neff, investigating the murders of two fellow cops committed by the wolfen), Wadleigh's adaptation blurs the line between survival and political activism. Indeed, halfway through the film you expect the wolfen to show up with "save the rainforests" buttons pinned on their pelts. Streiber's novel made the wolfen's mindset clear: Destroy that which threatens us. In that respect, the murders at the beginning of the book (the two police officers) are a mistake, a rash action by two young cubs which leads to more and more humans closing in on the wolfen. The wolfen have managed to remain hidden for years due to their cunning; attack the old and infirm, those that will not be missed, and destroy the bodies, something which the two cubs ignored and is now threatening the existence of the pack. The movie wolfen, on the other hand, basically attack a celluloid Donald Trump because he is razing over their slums and building an apartment complex. The movie then turns into a neo-political whodunnit, with Native-American Edward James Olmos being considered for the crime, and then local trust-fund terrorists Götterdämmerung being pegged for the deaths. Suffice it to say, the wolfen of the novel would not have risked their existence being revealed by killing a developer; they would have merely moved on and searched for new hunting grounds.
I give the movie two stars mainly because of the acting of the principles involved. Albert Finney makes an impressive George "Dewey" Wilson, and looking back at it now it's hard to imagine anyone else in that role. Gregory Hines' Whittington is a vast improvement over (the book's) curmudgeonly Wilson-hating Evans, and his interaction with Finney is a highlight. Tom Noonan's Ferguson is note for note the Ferguson from the novel, and freshfaced Diane Venora is adequate as Neff (here relegated to a secondary role as opposed to co-headliner in the novel). The scenes with the wolfen are merely OK, with Neff and Wilson investigating the old church and Wilson and Whittington staking out the wolfen as chilling as it's going to get.
I won't go over the absurd ending of the film, but I will say this: See it for the curiosity factor, then read the novel. You'll see where Michael Wadleigh (who also helped write the screenplay) injected his own politics into the film, and destroyed a fine concept in the process. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 06, 2004 | | Summary | How far I can change a story for film | Content
| Gregory Hines was perfectly cast as the medical examiner, the scene at night in Central Park filmed near the Central Park Zoo was a nightmarish delight and the use of infra-red photography in parts and human body sounds amplified was a nice touch BUT in 3 words, READ THE BOOK ! Save the ecology lesson for NEVER CRY WOLF, a Carroll Ballard masterpiece. |
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