"War Wolves" is a potentially promising but ultimately unspectacular werewolf effort.
**SPOILERS**
Coming back from Afghanistan, squadron Jake Gabriel, (Michael Worth) Erika Moore, (Natasha Alam) Justine, (Kristi Clainos) Casey, (Siri Baruc) Clay, (Dan Southworth) and Andrew Jensen, (Alex Ballar) are struggling to adapt to being civilians, and several of them turn homicidal as a result. Seemingly convinced that something happened to them back during the war, this leads Tony Ford, (John Saxon) and Frank Bergman, (Tim Thomerson) hunters of strange creatures, to conclude that a werewolf virus had infected the unit and has caused all of them to turn into ravenous creatures. Unable to fight them off, they enlist one of the soldiers who still has control over the situation to help them, and together they head off to eliminate the remaining squad members before more succumb to the virus.
The Good News: This one did have some good points about it that did work. One of the best aspects here is the fact that there's a rather large amount of action presented within, despite not a whole lot of scenes overall, but overall when it focuses on action the film is rather entertaining. Once it starts at the beginning with the squad's infiltration of the station during the war, it's an all-out firing zone on both sides which results in all-out chaos during the battle, with blood aplenty, some traditional war-movie style action and a hint of suspense when it's revealed that there's something sinister among the group when they start getting attacked by the strange humanoid-creatures, which makes it all the more frightening as well as action-packed. There's also a really fun barroom brawl here which shows three of the women taking out all the guys in the place in an old-western style fight scene that is an absolute blast to watch, namely for the women but also because it's just so cheesy and entertaining. A motel ambush that turns into a shoot-out also has some good parts to it, and features some rather impressive moments. All of them, pale, though, to the two full-on martial-arts-filled fist-fights that litter the finale of the movie, with two of them coming out as quite a lot of fun. The first, which is designated as a training session, is over a little quickly but still has a great pace to it that makes it somewhat enjoyable, and the final part is a full-on part that has absolutely nothing at all wrong with it but has a lot going for it. From a great location to good moves to a nicely balanced back-and-forth struggle, it ends the action nicely and keeps up the fun pace. There's also quite a nice bit of blood here, despite there not really having a lot of variety in the kills yet the splatter shown is good enough to stay interesting. The last plus is the fact that this one manages to use a slow-burn on the werewolf transformation, which is a nice touch and really has its moments. These here are all that work for this one.
The Bad News: There were only a couple flaws here, but those here are quite a bit more important than the positives. One of the biggest issues with this one is the fact that the film is so scattershot with its plot that it's virtually impossible to determine what the storyline is about. The original premise, about soldiers being exposed to a werewolf virus while in Iraq makes sense, but then to feature all of them returning back with hardly mention of anything going on or why this is central to their actions makes understanding the film almost impossible. Beyond several mentions of them proclaiming that he is integral is all we get, and that makes for a series of scenes that go by at a slow, pedestrian pace without any kind of explanation as to why it's happening, and due to getting so many different plots going at once is the real fault here. Some of them easily could've been trimmed and removed, slimming down the running time and forcing the remaining time on developing the few good ideas it has in here. Also problematic is the fact that there's no explanation as for why the werewolves are suddenly martial-artists with the skills beyond normal humans, able to leap around on wires and do highly-acrobatic turns and kicks when nothing of the sort has even been used to denote that as a skill is rather troublesome, and that they can even do it at all is a big problem. The fact that this one tends to suffer from a rather important flaw in that the werewolf transformations, which are integral to a werewolf film, are nowhere to be seen and instead the film forces upon us the most insipid, utterly laughable and ridiculous looking beasts to pass as werewolves in the entire genre, is perhaps the most egregious flaw here though. There's no human-into-wolf scenes here, but instead simply show up in fangs, contacts and dog-noses attached to them, acting like the martial-artist mentioned earlier, and are expected to be bought as werewolves. It's beyond laughable, it's simply ridiculous and makes them look even more low-rent than they should be, and that takes a lot of fear out of them, which when combined with the other problems really lowers this one considerably. These here are the film's flaws.
The Final Verdict: Without a whole lot of really good parts and only some really bad ones, this one doesn't turn out that good overall and is overall disappointing. Worth a look for those into the genre or are huge fans of the usual Sci-Fi Channel fare, while those that aren't fans now shouldn't expect much from this one.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity
**SPOILERS**
Coming back from Afghanistan, squadron Jake Gabriel, (Michael Worth) Erika Moore, (Natasha Alam) Justine, (Kristi Clainos) Casey, (Siri Baruc) Clay, (Dan Southworth) and Andrew Jensen, (Alex Ballar) are struggling to adapt to being civilians, and several of them turn homicidal as a result. Seemingly convinced that something happened to them back during the war, this leads Tony Ford, (John Saxon) and Frank Bergman, (Tim Thomerson) hunters of strange creatures, to conclude that a werewolf virus had infected the unit and has caused all of them to turn into ravenous creatures. Unable to fight them off, they enlist one of the soldiers who still has control over the situation to help them, and together they head off to eliminate the remaining squad members before more succumb to the virus.
The Good News: This one did have some good points about it that did work. One of the best aspects here is the fact that there's a rather large amount of action presented within, despite not a whole lot of scenes overall, but overall when it focuses on action the film is rather entertaining. Once it starts at the beginning with the squad's infiltration of the station during the war, it's an all-out firing zone on both sides which results in all-out chaos during the battle, with blood aplenty, some traditional war-movie style action and a hint of suspense when it's revealed that there's something sinister among the group when they start getting attacked by the strange humanoid-creatures, which makes it all the more frightening as well as action-packed. There's also a really fun barroom brawl here which shows three of the women taking out all the guys in the place in an old-western style fight scene that is an absolute blast to watch, namely for the women but also because it's just so cheesy and entertaining. A motel ambush that turns into a shoot-out also has some good parts to it, and features some rather impressive moments. All of them, pale, though, to the two full-on martial-arts-filled fist-fights that litter the finale of the movie, with two of them coming out as quite a lot of fun. The first, which is designated as a training session, is over a little quickly but still has a great pace to it that makes it somewhat enjoyable, and the final part is a full-on part that has absolutely nothing at all wrong with it but has a lot going for it. From a great location to good moves to a nicely balanced back-and-forth struggle, it ends the action nicely and keeps up the fun pace. There's also quite a nice bit of blood here, despite there not really having a lot of variety in the kills yet the splatter shown is good enough to stay interesting. The last plus is the fact that this one manages to use a slow-burn on the werewolf transformation, which is a nice touch and really has its moments. These here are all that work for this one.
The Bad News: There were only a couple flaws here, but those here are quite a bit more important than the positives. One of the biggest issues with this one is the fact that the film is so scattershot with its plot that it's virtually impossible to determine what the storyline is about. The original premise, about soldiers being exposed to a werewolf virus while in Iraq makes sense, but then to feature all of them returning back with hardly mention of anything going on or why this is central to their actions makes understanding the film almost impossible. Beyond several mentions of them proclaiming that he is integral is all we get, and that makes for a series of scenes that go by at a slow, pedestrian pace without any kind of explanation as to why it's happening, and due to getting so many different plots going at once is the real fault here. Some of them easily could've been trimmed and removed, slimming down the running time and forcing the remaining time on developing the few good ideas it has in here. Also problematic is the fact that there's no explanation as for why the werewolves are suddenly martial-artists with the skills beyond normal humans, able to leap around on wires and do highly-acrobatic turns and kicks when nothing of the sort has even been used to denote that as a skill is rather troublesome, and that they can even do it at all is a big problem. The fact that this one tends to suffer from a rather important flaw in that the werewolf transformations, which are integral to a werewolf film, are nowhere to be seen and instead the film forces upon us the most insipid, utterly laughable and ridiculous looking beasts to pass as werewolves in the entire genre, is perhaps the most egregious flaw here though. There's no human-into-wolf scenes here, but instead simply show up in fangs, contacts and dog-noses attached to them, acting like the martial-artist mentioned earlier, and are expected to be bought as werewolves. It's beyond laughable, it's simply ridiculous and makes them look even more low-rent than they should be, and that takes a lot of fear out of them, which when combined with the other problems really lowers this one considerably. These here are the film's flaws.
The Final Verdict: Without a whole lot of really good parts and only some really bad ones, this one doesn't turn out that good overall and is overall disappointing. Worth a look for those into the genre or are huge fans of the usual Sci-Fi Channel fare, while those that aren't fans now shouldn't expect much from this one.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity