YMMV / Wolf (Mike Nichols)

• Awesome Moments:
  • The plan Will sets in motion to keep his job. He knows the publishing world better than just about anyone, and knows exactly how to get Alden's attention.
    Mary: Is the worm turning, Mr. Randall?
    Will: The worm has turned, Mary, and is now packing an Uzi.
    Mary: It's about fucking time, sir.
  • The meeting between Will and Alden.
• Complete Monster: Stewart Swinton is Will Randall's slimy, manipulative "best friend" who spends the film scheming to get Will demoted or fired so Stewart can take his job, and, upon gaining the powers of a werewolf, Stewart becomes an absolute monster. Butchering Will's wife Charlotte and framing Will for it, Stewart eventually tracks Will down to the house of Laura, murdering his way through her security guards. Upon getting his hands on Laura, Stewart tries to "fuck her to death," planning to make Will watch as he rapes and murders Laura and, when Will overpowers Stewart, Stewart takes advantage of Will's mercy and tries to stab him in the back.
• Fight Scene Failure: In some scenes, it's very obvious when a stunt double is used. Particularly when Will is running through the forest.
• Narm:
  • When Will's gradual transformation isn't eerie, it's this. A lot of his My Instincts Are Showing moments feel like a predecessor of Halle Berry acting "more feline" in Catwoman, particularity when he howls at night and the dogs throughout the city respond in 101 Dalmatians fashion, or when he pees on Stewart to "mark his territory".
  • Dr. Alezais wanting Will to transmit his curse to avoid succumbing to his terminal illness might've been less unintentionally funny if Alezais asked him in a different way instead of: "I would like you to bite me".
  • The scene at the zoo with the two guards feels like something straight out of the theatrical cut of Superman II, with one guard recklessly asking Will to put his hands against the bars of the bear's cage, and the reaction at Will escaping by making an inhuman jump and crawl out of the zoo being a joke: "He got my cuffs!"
  • The way the police officers at the station aren't the least bit suspicious towards Stewart's Obviously Evil appearance and tone.
  • At times, the over-use of slow motion during Will and Stewart's final fight makes it feel less visceral and brutal and more overdramatic and campy in the vein of Kirk battling the Gorn captain. Laura trying to assist Will by spraying Stewart with a fire extinguisher doesn't help.
  • For all of Stewart's viciousness, James Spader's wolfish form looks rather puppylike compared to Jack Nicholson's.
• One-Scene Wonder: Om Puri as Dr. Alezais has only ten minutes of screen time, but he's among the more memorable characters in the film.
• Retroactive Recognition: Allison Janney as a guest at Alden's party, and David Schwimmer as the cop who tries to handcuff Will at the zoo.
• Special Effects Failure: During Will's first night out as a half-wolf chasing a deer is clearly during broad daylight with merely the brightness turned down.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: On a meta sense, the involvement of Rick Baker for the makeup special effects. Why get the special effects guru who has and would make amazing werewolf designs only to restrain him by asking him to apply some contact lenses, fangs and fur around Nicholson and Spader's faces?
• Values Dissonance: In the 2010s any reference to "a job no one would want" is laughable. (Maybe less so in the 2020s.)
  • Will's comments early on during the party about how "gay senior citizens" are among the things that have already ended the world make him come off as rather bigoted.

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