War Wolves

I usually watch SyFy movies on weekends while editing video. More often than not they are easy to walk away from when I need to concentrate on my work or turn off the audio. Plots are template driven, characters are stock, effects are cheesy and you don't need a big screen plasma to laugh at them.

WAR WOLVES departs from the formula in several ways and I liked it a lot more than I expected to. Seeing John, Tim and Adrienne was a treat. Somebody cared enough to set up some nice atmosphere in several scenes such as the bar confrontation early on and understood the visual power of "magic hour" lighting. Some key characters had mysterious backgrounds, although this may not have been intentional. The formula and template was there but the stock characters were a little less "stock" than many shows where everyone is snack food for the big CGI or puppet monster.

This thing was shot in Inverness, California according to IMDb and I think they drew from LA for a decent crew and attempted a decent production design on a shoestring budget. They apparently spent more on cast and less on fake blood and needless explosions or maybe the director called in some favors.

Nobody turns on SyFy expecting OTHELLO, but WAR WOLVES was striving to be TERMINATOR or SWAMP THING and deserves credit. I would love to see them try it again with a 10x budget and I betcha the continuity, plot holes and bad makeup and cheesy fight scenes could be patched right up!

The films approach is light hearted with some tongue in cheek nods to the X-files conspiracy theorists. It's not an SF gore fest, in fact they go out of their way to avoid the gore we've come to expect with such a sub-genre.

The writing is excellent in places and overall you engage with the protagonists- watching Tim & John is really entertaining (in a good way). I think with lesser leads this would have sunk without a trace.

It only seems to drag with the antagonists are on screen as the wolf SFX leave a lot to be desired. They throw in some matrix style fight scenes, but they aren't amazing.

Watch it for Tim & John if nothing else- great scenes.

I used to think i was a sci-fi geek, but watching the movies on the sci-fi channel has proved me wrong. I'm starting to hate sci-fi.

It's amazing to me that this channel continues to succeed. Nearly every movie they show is of low quality(either technically or artistically, and often times both) Such is the case with this particular werewolf movie. the effects are poor, and the acting is laughable. The story never caught my interest.

The best i can give this movie is a 2 out of ten. Somehow that seems generous.

I just wish that the sci-fi channel would be a little more critical of the material they show.

This is probably due to poor editing. There are too many jumps in the story, like key elements are left on the cutting room floor. How did they get out of the war zone alive? Very little character development, other than John Saxon's character. A few familiar faces, Art Lefluer, John Saxon and his Sargeant, and the briefest cameo of Martin Kove, which made no sense at all. The story kept jumping, and we kept asking "Wait, what happened? Now they are together?" Decent make-up, but not very werewolf looking. Of all the werewolf movies we've watched lately, this is not one I would recommend, unless you are a compelled to watch all things werewolf.

I am not one to often leave comments for films but if you are toying with the idea to sit through this god awful movie, my advice is don't. The acting is so poor and laughable,the characters are very 2 dimensional. The "matrix" style fight scenes are a severely poor rip off from the aforementioned. When it comes to the make up effects I could of done a better job the actors looked like hairless pooches with rather large ears. The plot was an absolute farce with as much depth as a kiddies paddling pool. If you want to waste an hour and half of your life then go ahead watch this movie but if you value every minute of your life avoid like the plague.I like to think I watched this so you the reader doesn't have to. I don't know if there is another version of this movie but the people giving it descent reviews almost certainly could not have watched the same movie as I did.