Jack Nicholson becomes a werewolf in this bizarre comedy-horror film directed by Mike Nichols. Nicholson plays Will Randall, a book editor with a testosterone deficit who has just been sacked at his publishing firm by a new boss, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer). A colleague, Stewart Swinton (James Spader), whom Randall thought was his friend, betrays him. Randall's personality changes after he hits a wolf with his car and gets bitten by the creature. He immediately feels more powerful, has
heightened hearing and vision, and sets about to right the wrongs in his life. He visits Alden at the publisher's mansion to protest his dismissal, and he is asked to leave -- but Alden's daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer) asks him to stay for lunch. Laura loves to defy her father. Will tells her about the wolf bite, and she becomes attracted to him. But because werewolves usually kill the ones they love, Laura is in danger. Will reasserts his place in the publishing world, supported by his loyal secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins), and his relationship with Laura deepens. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
A sometimes shaky, always enchanting Beauty and the Beast story for grown-ups that is the very essence of smart fun -- droll, sophisticated and surprisingly, pleasingly light.
An effective attempt to place a werewolf story in an incongruous setting, with the closely observed details of that setting used to make the story seem more believable.
Mike Nichols' underrated 1994 hybrid not only of wolf and man, but also of satire and horror...an eccentric film that may well be regarded, decades hence, as a movie classic. [Blu-ray]
It's the possibility of the transformation that's most intriguing, rather than the wolf man episodes themselves--though I have to admit that it's a nice twist on the legend to have this big bad wolf go after muggers in Central Park.
Director Mike Nichols emphasizes the film's Kafkaesque metamorphosis, a metaphor for the nightmarish experience of becoming different from most people and less valued; I won't be surprised if some viewers see it as allegory about AIDS.
On the surface a literate werewolf thriller, the subtext of Mike Nichols' Wolf is a sharp critique about what it takes to succeed in the cutthroat corporate world.
Mike Nichols directs this update of the wolfman myth with Jack Nicholson as the victim/monster. Here its played interestingly as sort of a desirable thing, a fountain of youth, an answer to societal submissiveness. Michelle Pfieffer adds spice as the woman drawn into it.
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