Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Wolf Blu-ray Movie Review

'Wolf' takes a bite out of this disc -- straight in the supplements.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 8, 2009

The worm has turned and is now packing an Uzi.

An imaginative take on an old legend and a staple of the Horror genre, Wolf updates the mythos of the werewolf for the modern era, intermingling office politics, back stabbing, and extramarital affairs into the mix. The film retains the standard motifs associated with the werewolf sub-genre, including physical metamorphoses, full moons, memory loss, and heightened awareness, though the film does eschew the old standby that has come to define the genre, the silver bullet. In a way, that allows Wolf to become its own creature, so to speak; it clearly doesn't forget its roots, but at the same time it updates the story and foregoes the biggest cliché of them all in favor of a fresh and refreshing take on one of film-dom's favorite subjects.

Jack following a Lakers loss.

Will Randall (Jack Nicholson, Easy Rider), editor-in-cheif at a major publishing firm, is about to lose his job. Billionaire Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) has just purchased the firm, and he's "reassigning" Will to Eastern Europe so young hotshot Stewart Swinton (James Spader, Sex, Lies, and Videotape) can take his place. Will seems resigned to reluctantly go with the flow until he begins to notice a few changes: animals are terrified of him, his vision improves, his senses of hearing and smell are heightened, and the bite he recently sustained by the teeth of a wolf on a snowy road in Vermont suddenly begins growing copious amounts of fur. Before he can piece together exactly what's happened, he finds himself sleeping by day and howling at the moon by night. Reenergized, Will hatches a scheme to retake his position at the firm, and his drive is only reinforced when he learns that his wife has been engaged in a torrid affair with Swinton. Meanwhile, Will takes a liking to Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns), Alden's daughter and the only one that seems capable of understanding Will for who -- and what -- he is. As the stakes grow higher in the dangerous corporate game and the fangs and fur force their way into Will's nightlife routine, he must balance his newfound love life and energy and verve in the office while confronting an opponent that's more than willing to take a bite out of Will if it means getting his dream job back.

Wolf's strongest asset comes not in the form of its werewolf action but in the story that's constructed around the monster. Wolf features surprisingly little direct werewolf action; there's some intermingled violence tossed into the mix, but the story primarily revolves around the man rather than the creature within and how the gradual alterations come to effect his highly complicated personal life. The story is excellently scripted and the film is deliberately but captivatingly paced to not necessarily drag out any suspense (there really isn't any) but instead to savor the surprisingly strong and, more importantly, engaging script that not only holds one's attention but also serves as a springboard for an excellent tit-for-tat series of events that all lead to the film's inevitable, expected, predictable, but nevertheless entertaining finale. In fact, the film's building blocks that serve as the support beams for the werewolf angle work well enough that they would have made for a fairly decent standalone movie of one-hundred-percent human revenge.

Backing up the solid story is an all-around good production that, between the actors in front of the camera and the crew behind it, only adds to both the drama and action. The film's climactic confrontation is comprised mostly of slow-motion shots that become repetitive and tiresome even in the brief amount of time it takes for the fight to begin and end, but otherwise, Wolf features steady, if not slightly understated, direction from Mike Nichols (Closer). Nichols' approach to the material-at-large greatly benefits the film; he realizes the strength of the story and the talented ensemble of actors and allows those aspects of the film to shine through, and the somewhat more reserved yet nevertheless impressive and almost classical approach to the material (including an opening scene that seems it could be straight out of The Shining) serves only to solidify the more crucial elements of the overall experience. Wolf is a star-driven picture that features a superb trio of actors that do well to completely immerse themselves into the film, and the confrontations that erupt throughout are only heightened thanks to the serious but at the same time slyly playful tone of the script. Jack Nicholson, Christopher Plummer, and James Spader all gobble up the material, capture the essence of their characters (particularly Spader and his slithery character), and seem to enjoy performing the parts rather than simply going through the motions. Also featuring a pitch-perfect score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (The Untouchables), Wolf makes for a fine ambassador for the werewolf-in-film sub-genre.

Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wolf sinks its teeth into this 1080p, 1.85:1-framed Blu-ray transfer. Though the image delivers a consistent, generally pleasing, and film-like appearance through the better part of the runtime, there are some visual anomalies -- particularly early on -- that take away from what is otherwise a solid transfer. There's some blatant telecine wobble over the opening title sequence; blocking creeps into a few scenes; blacks sometimes overwhelm the screen and drown out detail; and flesh tones can sometimes veer towards the red end of the spectrum. Despite a few misses, Wolf's 1080p transfer is generally good. The level of visible grain fluctuates between average and aggressive, but either way, Wolf delivers a satisfying film-like appearance. Sony's commitment to leaving grain in-tact saves the image from the pitfalls of digital scrubbing, and by extension the image retains a fair level of detail that won't wow its audience but does help in replicating the film's natural look nicely. Michelle Pfeiffer's hair flows naturally and distinctly one strand from another in several scenes, and Jack Nicholson's stubby facial hair and longer lupine fur are both nicely realized on Blu-ray. Likewise, clothing, the background objects inside the publishing firm's offices, and natural outdoor scenes retain a good, but not extraordinary, level of visible detail. Color is somewhat subdued but natural. Overall, and despite a few less-than-stellar scenes near the beginning, Wolf delivers a fairly good film-like transfer with sufficiently rendered detail and color.

Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wolf howls up a storm on Blu-ray with a loud DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Unfortunately, "loud" doesn't necessarily equate to "good," and while Wolf's soundtrack isn't a bad one, it's not quite as clear, balanced, and in-command as listeners have come to expect of a well-engineered Blu-ray soundtrack. The collision on the snowy Vermont road between wolf and Volvo delivers a startling level of power that adds to the surprise of the moment. In the subsequent shots, the track does well to place plenty of nuanced sounds -- particularly that of nearby trees buckling under the weight of the snow on their branches or limbs swaying in the cold breeze -- all around the soundstage. When Will is bitten, the music swells to include a range that features both crisp highs and seat-rattling lows. On something more of a downside, dialogue and background effects -- particularly early in the film -- often sound canned and unnatural, a dinner sequence in chapter two serving as a prime example. Throughout, the track places sound effects all over the soundstage -- background dialogue or city traffic outside the publishing house offices, for example -- but most come across as forced and often too loud, creating a false sense of space and perspective. More subtle background effects, for instance chirping crickets as heard during a few nighttime shots or some chirping birds in an outdoor scene in chapter five, sound a bit more realistic. Wolf's soundtrack is somewhat perplexing. It's not bad, but it seems lacking; whether that's a result of this mix or the film's inherent sound design, the net result is an uneven-at-best listen on Blu-ray.

Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Wolf features only BD-Live functionality and 1080p trailers for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Da Vinci Code, Ghostbusters, and Men in Black.

Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A cozy, fun, and altogether modern updating of the classic werewolf stories, Wolf is more about the man than it is the beast, the film examining the animal's impact on a man's life and career rather than simply reproducing a record of his howling at the moon and attacks on various peoples. The film foregoes more classic Horror motifs in favor of a surprisingly enthralling dramatic arc, solidified by top-notch performances from several highly talented actors; unremarkable but fitting direction; and a memorable score. Sony's Blu-ray release of Wolf features a loud but not always completely impressive lossless soundtrack, a rather strong 1080p transfer with several -- albeit brief -- shortcomings, and no special features. Wolf is definitely worth a rental, and fans might want to consider picking it up for the right price.