Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a 2001 French historical horror/action movie set in 1764. It was directed by Christophe Gans.

It’s based very very very loosely on the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, presumed to have been a huge wolf which killed over a hundred people.

In the movie naturalist Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel le Bihan) and his Iroquois companion Mani (Mark Dacascos) have been sent by the King to help the local authorities trap and destroy the Beast.

They run into some trouble with a huge gang of ruffians but fortunately Mani is a kung fu expert (the Iroquois being of course renowned for their kung fu skills).

Mani also has vague mystical spiritual powers which of course makes him a superior person. He’s also the most morally superior person in the story.

Attempts to track the Beast end in failure and the Beast claims more and more victims.

Tensions are high but de Fronsac finds time to fall in love with the beautiful Marianne de Morangias (Émilie Dequenne). He also finds time for some hot bedroom action with a local whore, Sylvia (Monica Bellucci). Sylvia also has vague mystical spiritual powers which of course makes her a superior person.

We get a series of revelations indicating what is really happening. Each revelation is a bit sillier and a bit more lame than the preceding one. The central idea is very implausible.

And then we get to the Big Reveal, at which point I was sorely tempted to just switch the movie off and go to bed.

The plot twists are not so much twists as out-and-out cheats. Or perhaps just a symptom of a garbled nonsensical script.

Visually it’s quite impressive in a very gimmick-laden way with the same visual tricks used over and over again.

There’s a lot of clumsy ideological messaging. Lots and lots of it.

A huge problem is that all the major sympathetic characters belong to the world of 2001, not the world of 1764. Their outlooks, attitudes and beliefs are those of 2001, not 1764.

I was amused by one online reviewer waxing lyrical about the steamy erotic scenes between Samuel le Bihan and Monica Bellucci. He must have seen a different movie. I saw the full uncut version. The sex scenes are boring and terribly un-erotic. This is a movie with zero erotic energy and zero emotional energy.

The kung fu scenes are absurdly out of place and make a silly movie even sillier and they’re not even particularly well done.

The biggest problem is that the movie just goes on and on and on. For two-and-a-half interminable hours. The pacing is glacial.

None of the elements really hang together and they’re not tonally consistent. It starts out trying to build a subtle atmosphere of dread and evil. Then it becomes a kung fu movie. Finally it turns into a comic book-style superhero movie. The evil turns out to be very trite. The ending is chaotic, but not in a good way.

Given that I was never even a tiny bit convinced by the historical setting or by the characters I found it difficult to keep interested. I can’t recommend this one.

It looks nice enough on Blu-Ray.