Skinwalkers: Biker werewolves, a Chosen One, red moons. So much wasted potential...

Not as cool as the graphic makes you think...

This isn't going to be much of a review, because there's just not much going for Skinwalkers other than a lot of potential for a really interesting story that falls flat. And when I say 'flat', I don't mean it just tripped over it's own ungangly feet of a plot and landed face first into a muddy pile of weak dialogue, boring clichés, and people walking around in werewolf masks that are supposed to be scary. I mean it fell flat, as in flat, below the horizon, not visible to the naked eye because it is so one-dimensional flat.

God, this could have been so much fun! It starts off very slow, but I figured it was just taking a while for setup. I thought we had something going when a sweet grandma pulls a Dirty Harry gun out of her purse in front of her twelve year old grandson, leading a wave of exchanged gunfire between all the members of a small town, and a biker gang of werewolves. But it quickly regresses back to boring, clunky, and nowhere near enough actually cool werewolf CGI. Seriously, they just threw masks on the actors, told them to strut around like cavemen, and occasionally growl and snarl. The makeup on the Broadway musical Cats was more realistic.

Many members of the cast are horribly wasted, because I've seen them in much better things than this. Elias Koteas was in The Prophecy, which still colors my nightmares about angels. Rhona Mitra was in the hilarious version of Beowulf with Christopher Lambert, and more recently in the latest Underworld flick. Natassia Malthe was in Bloodsuckers, a.k.a. "Vampire Wars" (and I'm embarrassed to admit I sat up straight when I recognized 'Quintana' from that riotous flick), and in the entertaining Blood Rayne 2: Deliverance as the lead role. All three of these folks I know can act better than their performance in Skinwalkers, but when the script is this weak, there's not much enthusiasm to be found. They all do as well as can be expected, but it's like a sense of resignation settled over the set, and everyone just went through the motions so they could call this one done.

The plot supposedly hinges on a Chosen One who will end the curse of lycanthropy when he turns thirteen. Yay. A 'Chosen One.' Never heard that one before. It's because he's half human and half werewolf, so there's the twist. Naturally he and his human mother are unaware of the central role they will play in this war, and suddenly find themselves on the run, protected by the 'good' werewolves who want the curse to end. The cool looking biker werewolves are naturally 'bad', and want to kill the kid so they never have to face being mere mortals again. When the moon turns red at night, that's the signal to all that 'it has begun'. Instead of the poor kid facing acne and embarrassing moments where he has to hold his notebook in front of him, he has to stand around and watch people he grew up with die to protect him, all so he can stop a curse by doing nothing more interesting than living to see the dawn.

I just couldn't make sense of where the story was trying to go. It had a couple of interesting turns, but not enough to make me forget how weak the entire affair was. When it ended, I just shrugged, deleted it from my DVR, and went on with my day. It didn't make any impact, and I don't think it will on anyone else who pays attention.

If you have to watch every movie ever made about werewolves, go ahead, bore yourself to tears with this. If you're like me and just have to watch something to know for certain how weak or bad it is, go ahead, and bore yourself to tears with this. It's not an affront to the gods, but if I offered it to them as a tribute, I would bore the gods themselves to tears with this. I think you can sense my overall theme here, which is oddly more consistent than the one Skinwalkers had.

Watch Cursed or Never Cry Werewolf if you want a good werewolf movie with a side of humor. For a sleeping pill, go with Skinwalkers.

And because I feel so badly that I had to give such a boring review of such a boring movie, here's a video that may perk things up for you: BoHeMan Rhapsody: (turn your speakers up!)

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