Grade:  C+

Director:  Christophe Gans		Released:  January 2002
Writer:  Stéphane Cabel, Christophe Gans		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Samuel Le Bihan		Running time:  142 minutes

Ratings System

As it turns out, my threshold for Brotherhood of the Wolf is about 2 hours.  Unfortunately, the picture lasts almost 2 and a half hours.  I wish they could have found a way to deliver the needed information in a little bit less time.  I was totally into it for the first hour and forty-five minutes, then it started to drag.  But I did enjoy a majority of the film.

The story is based loosely on a wolf/beast that terrorized France for a few years late in the 18th century.  It's the coolest looking French film I've ever seen, and the director, Gans, is clearly a John Woo fan.  He blends genres so that we get a little bit of The Matrix in the fight scenes, a little bit of a period piece in the costumes and sets, a little bit of a horror/werewolf movie, so as to make Brotherhood of the Wolf like no movie you've ever seen.

The look of the film is its greatest asset.  In particular, I really loved the costume design.  The triangle hats, the puffy shirts, the ninja-style French rain gear, great stuff, all of it.  There's always something interesting on the screen to look at and most of the time it's the wardrobe.

- crocoPuffs