An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
Rating: 2.0 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Anthony Waller
Written by: Anthony Waller, Tim Burns, and Tom Stern
Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Julie Delpy, Vince Vieluf, Phil Buckman
Ingredients: Three young American guys traveling in Paris, cute girl who is a werewolf by night, a werewolf organization that wants to take over the world
Synopsis: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS is based on the mythology of an earlier film: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) by John Landis. For those of you unfamiliar with the AMERICAN WEREWOLF ... formula, the basic horror/comedy formula for this series is: some young American guys hang out in Europe to backpack, travel, and meet women. One of them invariably gets bitten by a werewolf, while another invariably dies. The spirit of the dead friend is cursed to haunt and give advice to the surviving friend, who now finds that he transforms into a hairy man-eating creature at night when the moon is full. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) became an 80s cult classic because of its dark humor and great special effects transformations.
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS does not have great special effects (the wolf creatures don't have natural movement or balance), but it does contain elements of the same plot formula as AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. In the first ten minutes, it's established that three immature American main characters are bumbling around Europe daring each other to do crazy stunts and meet women. When the geekiest of the travelers - - Andy (Tom Everett Scott) - - tries to impress his friends with a bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower, he accidentally ends up saving a hot French babe named Seraphine (Julie Delpy), who is trying to commit suicide from the top of the tower. Little do the boys know that Seraphine is really a werewolf. Soon enough, Andy gets bitten by a werewolf, his buddy dies, and the spirit of the dead friend is cursed to haunt and give advice to poor Andy - - who now finds that he transforms into a bloodthirsty beast at night when the moon is full. The third American buddy is captured by a gang of anti-American French werewolves who want to take over the world. Meanwhile Seraphine is doing some research on an antidote to cure lycanthropy (werewolfism). Can Andy and Seraphine cure themselves and also stop the militant werewolf group from world domination?
Opinion: I like werewolf movies in general. I also like the first ten minutes of AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS; it is kind of funny, and it establishes that - - aside from the wolf story - - some sort of comedic romance is going to take place. Finally, I like the end of this movie, because it ties in with the beginning. But the middle of the film really loses me - - with a dozen side plots about militants taking over the world, causing and curing lycanthropy, a mysterious patient on a respirator, a needless breast-feeling scene, an unresolved female American tourist undead spirit character, confusing new werewolf lore about eating the heart of the werewolf that bit you, and so on. I ended up with more questions than I came in with. In my opinion, they should simplify the middle of this movie by weeding out unnecessary unresolved subplots and characters, and then find a way to make it humorous and witty - - instead of suspenseless and confusing.
Reviewed by David Sunga January 1, 1998
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews