War Wolves

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.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Genre: Horror, Werewolves

Director: Michael Worth

Stars: Michael Worth, John Saxon, Tim Thomerson, Natasha Alam, Alex Ballar, Siri Baruc, Kristi Clainos, Adrienne Barbeau, Jon Bradford, Margot Farley

Synopsis: Ford (Saxon) leads a unit on the hunt for an escaped, infected team member who was infected by a werewolf virus. But others have been infected and a group of she-wolves may be more dangerous then they can possible imagine.

Thoughts: Well you know you are in trouble as a filmmaker (not to mention the viewer) when your celluloid effort gets picked up by the SciFi Channel. There's a 90% chance that they'll regret it and we'll regret it even more. Unfortunately "War Wolves" doesn't break the cycle. This bad boy must have a seriously low budget. For nearly the entire length of the film we get growling effects, dime-store fangs, contacts and the occasional eye shadow to signify someone is in wolf mode. Toward the end when we see our war wolves in their ahem full glory well let's just say that Barf's makeup in "Spaceballs" has a better shot at scaring the crap out of you. The script will make you wince in pain with dialogue so hideous you'd like to stuff your remote in your ears.

In Conclusion: This one should rate a zero. The only reason I give it two stars is that genre greats Saxon, Thomerson and Barbeau were in it. They did what they could with what little they were given and Thomerson actually managed a couple good comebacks. So be warned.

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 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.

but War Wolves wasn't necessarily a good movie in my opinion. Although I was dubious about seeing the film, I was intrigued and watched it with an open mind BEFORE reading any reviews of any kind. War Wolves did have some good points, namely the idea, which was interesting and had a lot of potential, and the performances of Adrienne Barbeau, Tim Thomerson and John Saxon were good with great chemistry. I also admired the fact that War Wolves did try to focus on action rather than dull filler. The action was nothing outstanding, it was enthusiastically performed if rather basic and hindered further by clumsy editing, but I have seen duller action sequences before. However, War Wolves also contains some of the worst-looking werewolves I've seen, the story is very all over the place and sluggish and the script is aimless, contrived and doesn't leave the actors much to work with. I have seen far more annoying and stereotypical characters, but I didn't find many of the characters very interesting, and this was disappointing considering that film had a concept this good. The ending felt very rushed and if given more time to breathe would've been less senseless. It was nice to hear Ave Maria, as it is a lovely song, but the way it was used here made it feel cheesy and thrown in. All in all, not a good movie, but I can think of worse ways to waste my time. 4/10 Bethany Cox