Teen Wolf: The Movie (2023)

Teen Wolf: The Movie is about werewolves fighting against a firefly demon enemy.

About halfway through the movie, it dawned on me that perhaps this was based on a CW show and when I looked it up I found out it was MTV. The movie is very much written for an audience who has seen the show as many characters and their powers are not introduced.

Directed by Russell Mulcahy, who also directed the TV show, 1986's Highlander, and more recently the two episodes of Netflix's TV series 13 Reasons Why. I'm not sure what the budget of the film was, but surely they could have spent more on the CGI as it's of the quality of Charmed or Buffy. This is 2023 though, audiences expect better. There are also some camera positions that are questionable and fog also just lingers in specific areas which I suppose is more of a production design issue. The sets are sometimes unbelievable and sometimes the backgrounds are obviously computer generated. The music also swells sometimes then dies down immediately as if it was just there for character reveal.

Will Wallace and Joseph P. Genier are the writers of the show and movie. From only seeing the movie I can tell they lean heavily on sticky dialogue and exposition. The plot is very bizarre and scenes jump from one to another without any flow. I found myself asking my tv "What?" after hearing something really weird that didn't make sense and the movie didn't set up for it. This happened a few times as the movie really just jumps around.

The cast is pretty large. I expect many people to have fan favorites but for a new audience, I felt like it was over-crowded. The worst of the acting came from JR Bourne as half the time he was wooden the other half was overacting and like he was reading a cue card next to the cameraman. The best acting came from Holland Roden, but her character introduction was weird, with bad camera work, and then suddenly she's scribbling on her desk. I remember her from Escape Room: Tournament of Champions but little else. Seth Gilliam is in this movie from The Walking Dead, but here he has one expression. I mean it worked in The Walking Dead but here it just felt boring. His scenes felt like they were one-takes and the director didn't bother to ask them to act better.

The movie is cringy to watch and I doubt I would have enjoyed the TV show after seeing the movie. Roden keeps this movie from being the absolute worst. D-

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