By Mark HadleyTuesday 23 Feb 2010MoviesReading Time: 2 minutes
The Wolfman
Rating: MA 15+
Distributor: ABC2
Release Date: February 11
The Wolfman seems to have everything required for a box office hit: a stellar cast including Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving; a lavish Victorian English setting; and a topic that seems to play to the current fascination with humans that transform into creatures of the night.
Yet despite the dark and mysterious the countryside, the storyline runs along as predictably as a pair of railway tracks. Viewers will see the ending coming a mile off and the special effects of six-time Oscar-winner Rick Baker won’t be fascinating enough to distract them. Spiritually speaking The Wolfman presents us with a dualist universe where good barely manages to hold back an evenly matched evil. Director Joe Johnston certainly earns its MA rating by exhausting all the usual ways of killing people in the first 25 minutes. Perversely if there is a message it is that no man deserves to be executed however beastly his crimes because “…there is no sin in killing a beast, only a man. But where does one begin and the other end?” If you can follow that logic you will probably enjoy the ride.
The Hurt Locker
Rating: MA 15+
Distributor: Icon
Release Date: February 25
Nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes, The Hurt Locker is a tense war-time thriller about a three man team defusing bombs in Iraq, the world’s most explosive country. This nerve-racking feature is a study in sacrifice. In a world where suicide bombers hand out sweets to children so they can claim more victims, who would risk their own life to stop this society flying apart?
Newly appointed team leader staff sergeant Will James (Jeremy Renner) appears to present as great a risk to his partners as the wide variety of booby-traps they are called on to dismantle. However his determination not to allow the bomb makers to succeed sees him risk his life for the innocent and the oblivious alike. The Hurt Locker provides a helpful illustration for a world no longer interested in crucifixion stories. Drawing life from the jaws of death is more important to James than any comfort his home might provide. However the bomb he defuses today will only be replaced by another tomorrow till a murderous puzzle arrives that he cannot solve. Jesus’ Easter sacrifice is more deliberate, more effective and more extensive. Obviously in a story that concerns itself with violent death viewers can expect to see some disturbing scenes – hence the MA 15+ rating.