Wolves (2014)

Waste of time

An unexpected masterpiece

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A boy is trying to find out about his family history and stumbles upon a town of lycans. Wolves even tho it's a B-Movie it's one of the better ones for example Jason Momoa is terrific in here and so is Lucas Till also the wolves transformations are better than your average straight to dvd flick and there's also lots of action and fun to be had. Overall a great movie to be honest and one of Momoa's best perfomances to date next to Aquaman and people who liked films like Wolf (1994) or The Wolfman (2010) won't be disappointed. (A+)

Cayden Richards (Lucas Till) is the high school star quarterback but he is struggling with some strange changes. After a couple of incidents including transformation, he decides to runaway. He finds out that he is adopted. He befriends Wild Joe who sends him to others at Lupine Ridge. Gail Timmins (Melanie Scrofano) is the drunken bartender. He is immediately attracted to her sister Angelina Timmins (Merritt Patterson). John Tollerman (Stephen McHattie) gives him a job at his farm. Connor (Jason Momoa) is the mysterious local gang leader.The first thing one notice is that the transformation is revealed early on and the movie doesn't enjoy showing it. It doesn't have fun with the usual werewolf transformation sequence. It's possible that they don't have the expertise or the budget to do it properly. There is a lot of werewolf makeup. Most of it is fair. This is a lower budget Canadian production and strictly a cable TV movie. Still, there are possible ways to make it work better. There is no imagination in the filmmaking and the story moves too slowly. There is nothing surprising and there isn't any tension. Instead of rushing through his origins story, they should have started Cayden on the road. His past can be shown in quick flashbacks. None of it is that compelling anyways. This is not any good.

A young dude Cayden Richards (played by that geezer who plays Alex Summers/Havoc in "X-Men: First Class"; Lucas Till) with growing pains living with his adopted parents. Growing pains include sudden hair growth, insatiable appetite for blood, new pointy teeth, weird nightmares, and random howling at the moon. Things begin to go wrong for Cayden during a game of American football at his high school, nether the less his cheerleader girlfriend Lisa Stewart (Kaitlyn Leeb) tries to cheer him up with sex in a car but this also doesn't actually happen; Cayden's new wild side scares off Lisa. This is the catalyst for problems; Cayden's random growing pains see him blacking out and waking up to find he has slaughtered his step parents. Racked with guilt he goes on the run and soon encounters a stranger claiming to know his secret called "Wild Joe" (John Pyper-Ferguson) . Wild Joe advises if Cayden wants answers about his past and what has made him into a moon howling hairy troubled teenager then he should visit the random town of Lupine Ridge, and thus the merry journey begins.Upon arriving at Lupine ridge Cayden hits a bar and meets Angelina "Angel" Timmins (Merritt Patterson) and Gail Timmins (Melanie Scrofano) who run the place, in fact most of the local residents are in the bar too making the intro scene easier. Some of the residents instantly sniff him out as a descendant of the original werewolf clan that formed the town, others less nasally strong just mock him as the new kid in town, including Jason Momoa (Connor) the current alpha werewolf of the town. The night ends unsuccessfully for Cayden. The next day John Tollerman (Stephen McHattie) offers Cayden (using the name of Danny for cover), it turns out he's actually Cayden's uncle - coincidence or what! Cayden soon discovered that he is the child of rape, when trying to gain control of the town Connor (Momoa) who is a pure local werewolf rapes Cayden's mum who is also pure local werewolf. Knowing the rape child would be groomed to be the new evil all conquering alpha the pregnant mother is hidden by some of the good guy locals and gives birth in secret, after giving birth the child is put up for adoption and the mother kills herself. Connor is led to believe that she died before child birth so he is unaware of the alpha heir. Aaaanyway.... The alpha heir is back and he's curious about his own background and upon learning wants to help out, besides that he's already fallen in love with Angel (Merritt Patterson) and she is entwined in her own wolf dramas also involving alpha dog Connor. Angel has been promised to Connor to birth a pure werewolf as his original son (in this instance Cayden who is suspected dead) dies in prior to birth - it's either this deal or Connor and his pack of cronies go mental and kill all the locals so Connor remains the only pure blooded werewolf. Finding Angel is promised to Connor like some kind of cash cow is the last straw for Cayden - this is his fuel for a fight with Connor (his dad), all hell soon breaks loose. The big twist in this comes at the end (Despite the earlier spoilers this one is the biggest spoiler so be careful…) when Wild Joe returns to put the finishing blow on Connor, it turns out that Cayden hadn't been blacking out and killing people, Wild Joe had been grooming him as his assassin against Connor and had been killing people secretly and letting Cayden take the rap for it.When I started watching the film I thought the effects were tacky but that's because it's old school so I didn't mind (there is no CGI or animation - it's all classic make up and effects). The werewolves do look like the werewolves of 30's B-Movie cinema, they'd have looked fine next to a slightly camp Frankenstein or the creature from the black lagoon - but this is endearing rather than off putting - to this point thought there was a charm to the film which made me stick with it till the end. Don't expect deep and moving character development or startling narrative twists to the story. What you can do though is easily drift into and watch the mindless narrative unfold without having to interact your emotions.I've seen a lot of bad reviews on here but please don't be put of by them, I have seen worse, I have seen better, this one was harmless and I was able to watch it without the missus asking every couple of minutes what's going on.

This was a hugely disappointing movie for me. The acting was atrocious, what passed for a plot was utter tripe and the effects were mediocre at best. I had more or less expected most of that but had hoped for the redemption offered by some clever tongue-in-cheek take on its own failings to provide some classic b-grade or satiric humour. Alas, no such luck. For me, the most redeeming feature of having watched this movie is that I can make that statement in the past tense. There are MUCH better offerings out there but if, like me, you enjoy a good werewolf movie, then it is unavoidable that you will end up watching this dross anyway in your ongoing search for one of those rare gems. Don't say I didn't warn you though.....