A Candwich at first glance may resemble what you actually want (a decent sandwich) but when you open up it's bizarre packaging you soon you discover a horror of hot dog buns and processed awful that in no way resembles what it is trying to emulate. That, my friends, is this "film." I have seen a lot of movies this Werewolf Winter. Some have been shockingly good, some have been laughably terrible. But no movie thus far has made me feel actually offended at its existence like An American Werewolf in Paris.
An American Werewolf in Paris, as the title suggests, is supposedly a sequel to the innovative An American Werewolf in London. The original film contained Landis's signature ironic tone, as well as honestly likable characters, amazing practical effects, and a shockingly clever script. You can tell that the same person made the classic Blues Brothers, which features a similar style and wit. This "sequel," on the other hand (no longer directed by Landis but instead by a nearly unknown director, Anthony Waller) plunges into terrible 1990's cheese with patently unlikable characters, boring slapstick "humor," and some of the worst werewolf CGI I've ever seen.
Instead of David Naughton as our protagonist, this movie gives us Tom Everett Scott, otherwise known as 'a less crazy Kirk Cameron.'
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| He is as confused as to why he's in this movie as we are... |
Not-Kirk-Cameron's character is a douchebag and he is travelling with his douchebag friends as part of a "daredevil" tour through Europe. They sneak into monuments and attractions in order to do risky stunts. For example, they sneak into the Eiffel Tower in order to go bungee-jumping. Now, rather than dwelling on the absurdity of that statement (or questioning why the movie didn't just go with "kids backpacking through Europe" the way London did), I'll just say that it was at about this point (12 minutes in) that I knew that this movie was going to be terrible and that we, as watchers, were doomed.
No, it wasn't just the unlikable characters. No, it wasn't just the terrible dialogue. No, it wasn't just the unnecessary and implausible scenario. It was that someone decided it was a brilliant idea to put Smashmouth's "Walking on the Sun" on the soundtrack. Smashmouth. That is the tone someone wanted to set with this movie. This supposed sequel to An American Werewolf in London.
So at the Eiffel Tower, Not-Kirk-Cameron meets a girl who is about to throw herself off the edge to commit suicide. (Because most people who want to kill themselves want to do so in a public place that they had to pay €15.00 to get into... Also, where are the security guards? The Eiffel Tower does have security guards.) He rescues her by defying the laws of physics and catching her in mid-air using his green screen, er, "bungee-jumping" skills.
Eventually we learn that the suicidal French girl is a werewolf and the rest of the film, almost acting like a strange Howling-III-want-to-be, focusing on the girl trying to escape from her evil werewolf clan. Part of this escape involves a lot of her giving long "I am concerned about your existence" eyes to Not-Kirk-Cameron. I think we're supposed to assume that these looks are supposed to signal them falling in love, but it's a little unclear.
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| Yes, that is the lovely and wonderful Julie Delpy. And no, her acting did not save this script.... |
Not-Kirk-Cameron is accidentally transformed into a werewolf too, and we get a repeat of the An American Werewolf in London POV scenes where his werewolf rampages through the city (which doesn't look very "Paris"-like in these scenes) and kills people, including a girl he had previously taken out on a date. This death leads to the other attempt to make the film connect to An American Werewolf in London: the undead zombie ghost haunting.
The problem is that An American Werewolf in London's undead zombie ghost haunting was both clever and creepy. It was the film's main source of bitterly dark humor, with the undead Jack trying to convince David that he should just kill himself. It was horrifying and wickedly funny at the same time. In An American Werewolf in Paris, the undead girl has all the subtlety of a character from Jim Carrey's The Mask. Her eye pops out at one point and we get a POV shot where she can see her own boobs. She also spends time talking about how hard she worked for a great body and how angry she is because now her abs are decomposing and no one can appreciate them. These scenes are really, really bad and the humor is painfully cheap in comparison to the equivalent scenes in London.
The film ultimately ends with Not-Kirk-Cameron being able to harness and control his werewolf powers... um... somehow... and then defeating the evil werewolf leader.
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| My power is looking like a bad photoshop! |
Then Not-Kirk-Cameron-wolf and Suicide-Girl-wolf get married, bungee-jump off the Statue of Liberty, and live happily ever after. At some point the song "Mouth" by Bush plays.
Seriously.
This is the kind of sequel that makes me think that someone either completely did not understand what made the original movie great, or were actively trying to make a terrible, tone-deaf sequel (maybe they lost a bet?). Queen of the Damned almost seems a bit better in comparison, and that's really saying something.
This movie is just shockingly inept. Unlikable characters, bad acting, a forced script, painful dialogue, off-the-mark "humor," and some painful soundtrack choices almost make this film almost impressive in it's awfulness.
If you can drown your anger at this terrible, horrible, cheesy film being connected to Landis's near-masterpiece, this movie may fall into the so-bad-it's-good category... but only maybe.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 bites
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