An American Werewolf in Paris

I don't know why I get my hopes up for sequels... my hopes are always destroyed.

This movie is no exception. For starters, it's important to note that An American Werewolf in London (AAWiL) will always have a special place in my heart as one of the first horror movies I remembers seeing on HBO as a kid.

This movie lacked just about everything that AAWiL had: good acting, good special effects, a decent soundtrack, etc.

Tom Everett Scott is a terrible actor... the kind of actor I see and wonder how he ever gets casted for anything. Julie Delpy is OK and I dig her accent. Everyone else was pretty much fluff and/or fodder. The effects were God awful. It's hard enough to pull off CGI monsters and hairy ones are even harder to make believable. When you are making a sequel for a movie that had effects that are still impressive by today's standards, some serious effort has to be made if the intent is to make a movie that rivals the original. This one isn't even in the same league as AAWiL. The music for AAWiL was also very well done. AAWiP had... Bush? Yeah, that's the route you want to go to create a timeless classic.

Unlike other reviews I wouldn't even go so far as to say this movie would have good as a stand-alone (no connection to AAWiL), but I wouldn't even give it that much credit.

It just sucked.

OK, so I don't know why they decided to make another movie about a Yankee college student going to a European capital and becoming a lycanthrope. But still, "An American Werewolf in Paris" definitely has its moments. Some scenes were no doubt thrown in for comic relief, like "You can't just pop up and tell me what to do." I agree with a previous reviewer that people who slam this movie are comparing it too much to "An American Werewolf in London". Maybe there's a slight feeling of that one, but you have to take this one as something new - and rather campy - to really enjoy it. Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy do a pretty cool job. But either way, I think that I've had my fill of movies about US citizens becoming lycanthropes in the Old Continent.

So what do YOU plan to do the next time that there's a full moon?

Whaddya want from a B horror flick? This movie is funny and silly and camp -- perfect. It's not as good as the original (duh) but certainly has its charms. I liked the joke about clamato juice. See it, if you're in the mood for a non-threatening, generally interesting, often funny good time.

As a sequel to An American Werewolf in London, this film is sure to disappoint many. It certainly doesn't have the talent that was involved on that one. No John Landis. No David Naughton. No Jenny Agutter and other more-than-competent actors. No Rick Baker and dazzling, innovative special effects. I could go on...and on. But if one distances themselves from seeing this film as a sequel(and really it is not a sequel at all...it doesn't have any of the same characters from the first film), this film is not that bad on its own. Sure it is relying on your memories of the London film to get fannies in the seats. Yep, it uses the same character TYPES and situations(dead victims talking and being funny comes to mind quickly). Other than that and the fact that werewolves are involved(and a romance of course), I found few other similarities. This film is definitely going for more laughs and takes itself even far less serious than An American Werewolf in London. The leads...Scott and Delpy are pretty good. The rest of the actors are pretty good too, with Julie Bowen as a slutty American and the guy playing Claude particularly good. I also loved all the French police and the gentle humour inherent in every line they said. The script has some genuine scares laced throughout the picture but always comes back to the humour. French werewolves enjoying feasting on Americans was a particular funny storyline. Director Anthony Waller creates a fast-paced film with some excellent sequences interspersed with some sophomoric plot strands. By no means is this a great film, or even a great horror film/spoof, but it is a film that should grab and hold your attention. Make you jump a few times and laugh out loud now and then.

If you want a great plot, terrific special effects, good humor and characters you can really care about, rent An American Werewolf in LONDON. Stay away from this tripe.

For one thing, the supposedly high-tech special effects are terribly disappointing. Hard to believe that even though the original movie was made 14 years before this one, its SFX are actually more realistic, mostly because the transformation scenes in this movie often happen either off-camera or while the character is running behind something.

Also, the humor in the movie falls short. Granted, the "chewing gum" skit was pretty funny, but as I walked out of the theatre I was pretty ashamed of myself for laughing at such an immature joke. The Eiffel Tower scene is funny only because of its felonious breaking of the laws of physics (Uh, since the Tower spreads outward, wouldn't these bungee jumpers wind up slamming into it at some point during their fall?)

And finally, the plot is simply insulting. Even though the original movie had little more behind its story than "I'm a werewolf, oh no" that is even better than this stereotypical drivel about an anti-American punk who wants to "purify" the world from the country. If that's not bad enough, their method (luring Gen-X tourists into a club to meet their grisly deaths) is awful inefficient. And to top it off, there are numerous mentions and depictions of eating/drinking someone's heart (including a scene in which Julie Delpy sticks a human heart in a blender - yummy), none of which are suitable for anyone with a stomach.

As stated in the beginning, if you really want to see a good werewolf movie, the original 1983 film will suit you just fine. But if you rent this one, be warned: the producers and writers spent more time getting Bush to sing the theme song than they did writing the plot.