Drop trou and give this one a full moon.
Teen Wolf: The Movie (now on Paramount+) arrives six long years after MTV series Teen Wolf unleashed its final awooooooo, which surely has been a time, to quote the Big Bad from the new outing, of “CHAOS! STRIFE! PAIN!” Granted, the hardest of hardcores have spent that time loading up the internet with fan fiction – knock yourselves out, kids! – although some of those franchise fantasies will be neutered a bit since TW:TM features bare butts and F-bombs. The series ran for six seasons and wrapped up neatly, so it takes a little retconning to get the movie revved up, including, but not limited to, conspicuously failing to mention the absence of a primary character (Dylan O’Brien’s Stiles is completely AWOL) and bringing another one back from the dead (Crystal Reed’s Allison). Longtime fans and newbs alike know that this Buffy-ized, post-Twilight Saga remake-in-name-only of the 1985 Michael J. Fox movie (and its asinine Justin Bateman-led sequel) is going to be a real howler, but whether anyone will be satisfied with any or all of its ungodly 139 minutes remains to be seen.
The Gist: ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE MINUTES. I underscore and reiterate lest you think that was a typo. The movie opens with a barely comprehensible scene in a Japanese restaurant, but the gist of it is, a barely comprehensible evil has emerged, and it talks like Gozer from Ghostbusters. Meanwhile, in sunny Beacon Hills, thirteen years have passed in the Teen Wolf narrative space-time continuum since the final TV episode, so thank your chosen deity or deities that we’re no longer being asked to believe that these actors are playing teenagers. Some of them are graying and have a few more wrinkles than before and that’s OK, that’s just time doing what time does – but they still have their werewolf abilities to grow pointy claws and pointy teeth and pointy sideburns so massive you’d mistake all these guys for stand-up bass players in rockabilly bands.
Let’s catch up with some of our principals now: Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) runs an animal shelter, since he’s the Alpha werewolf and therefore has the humane animal-control skills your average dogcatcher lacks. Lydia (Holland Roden) has mothballed her banshee screams for the life of a relative normie. Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin) struggles with his serially delinquent son Eli (Vince Mattis), and lest you think there are no Teen Wolves in this Teen Wolf, the kid is 15 and his pointy canines are starting to get supernaturally pointy. Eli plays lacrosse but he’s a benchwarmer and his room is decorated with posters that literally read ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL and HORROR, because that’s what delinquent teens enjoy! You know, like, HELLO FELLOW TEEN DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL LIKE I LIKE ROCK MUSIC FESTIVAL? RAD, BRO. LET’S HANG OUT AND WATCH HORROR MOVIE.
