Friday 20 July 2007

#90. Teen Wolf Too (1987)

Box CoverI've got to say that I enjoyed Teen Wolf. So this sequel always had something to live up to. The original was a highly silly, yet charming piece of 80s kitsch. As for Teen Wolf Too... well...

Jumping right in we meet Todd Howard, Scott's (Michael J Fox from the original) cousin. He has been dubiously offered a sports scholarship by a prestigious university's Dean, who in turn hopes he will turn Wolf and win... college boxing matches. All Todd wants to do is study to become a vet, but is under pressure to perform in the ring or loose his university place. The first thing I noticed when watching was that the plot is blatantly going to be exactly the same as the original. The second, from seeing John Astin (the original Gomez Addams and a veteran of the Killer Tomato movies) playing the Dean, it was clear this would be a much hammier and in your face movie.

Woot Wolf YayThere are a lot of returning characters from the first film, but not all played by the same people. Harold Howard (Scott's father and Todd's uncle), makes a couple of appearances. Oddly still played by the same actor, but the character feels totally different. Instead of being the previously wise and responsible father figure, he spends most of his time goading Todd to become a wolf and singing it's praises. Coach Finstock has for some reason stopped being a humourous, lethargic high school basketball coach, and gone into university boxing; even orchestrating the scholarship. He's also now played by Paul Sand (?) and is largely forgettable. Another previously favourite character of mine, Stiles, has also become a student here and had a face lift. Now played by Stuart Fratkin, he has little of the charm of his former, and a script which does him no favours; wheeling out the fart gags early on. One of the original basketball team, Chubbs, does return, with face intact. Although he too has made the contrived move to this university and switched his preferred sport to boxing. Perhaps he and Finstock made the decision together.

jump dicknoseJason Bateman heads up the cast as Todd Howard. Now best known for his role in Arrested Development, I'm afraid to say he shows little promise here. Admittedly there's not much to work with, but he only makes an impression thanks to turning into a wolf. The wolf this time round feels even more like a Jekyll character than before. Whilst Scott Howard had a desire to be the centre of attention and misguidedly uses the wolf to do so, here the transformation seduces Todd to act like an egotistical jerk against his will. It's reminiscent of Spiderman's recent transformation whilst wearing the Venom suit in Spiderman 3. The personality change goes to great extremes, as he degradingly catches frisbees with his teeth in the park, laughs at people being knocked off their bikes by his corvette, and then the crowning glory of the film. He sings “Do You Love Me?” on a balcony of a house party, with a full formation dance routine from the party guests. It's a jaw dropping moment of unintentional hilarity.

Staying with the wolf for a moment, the choice of boxing felt a tad misjudged. It was humourous watching a wolf slam dunking a basketball, and running the court. Whereas there's something uncomfortable about sticking a 6ft wolf into the ring to knock ten shades of crap out of a college kid. Maybe the university's next sporting initiative will be to put their youngsters into a caged arena with a rabid bobcat and a starved panther. Nevertheless we get a rocky style montage of the 'wolf too' beating and prancing his way through the matches. Even though most of the boxing material feels poorly tacked onto the plot.

Do you love me?

As I've mentioned the script is essentially a remake, which is probably why Loeb and Weisman get 'story by' credits. It's the same story with a few changes of detail. The screenplay comes from Tim Kring, who went on to create and write TV series Heroes. Once again, he shows little promise at this stage of his career. The most inventive thing about Teen Wolf Too is probably it's title. The production values are low all round, as even the wolf mask is noticeably loose and rubbery. Stuart Fratkin has said that it was “One of the most tense sets I've ever worked on. Nobody seemed happy and the “Studio” (Atlantic Entertainment) put a lot of pressure on everybody to surpass the first one.” You can safely assume that they failed.

frisbee fool

On 8th May 2007, Teen Wolf Too had an average score of 2.5 out of 10 from 3,550 votes. It placed at number 90 on the IMDB bottom 100.

Also, Teen Wolf is on the cards for a forthcoming remake – rumoured to have a female in the titular role.

So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King and I (1999)

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