I love seeing animated movies because animation makes it easier to have an adventure in places normal cinema can’t take us. The world of friendly werewolves and their teenage angst, however, are so strange that 100% Wolf is a boring and pointless movie for all ages.
Small animation studios (like the ones in Australia that produced this) find success in only one way: they need to find interesting, cross-generational stories that audiences would be excited to see.
100% Wolf is not that story. The plot is a teenage boy named Freddy (Ilai Swindells) has a right of passage in his family of friendly werewolves where he is about to transform for the first time. When he turns into a poodle instead, he now has 24 hours to prove he’s got what it takes to become…you guessed it…100% wolf.
The film is being released for its proximity to Halloween simply because it’s about werewolves. But it’s not scary at all - it’s rated G, and the werewolves look cuddly. There also isn’t a single fight or hint of violence in the whole film.
Kids are clearly the target audience because the humour is targeted for kids under 8, but the five or six plot lines make the dogs and wolves romping around town too confusing for kids to follow.
That humour, by the way, is almost exclusively toilet-themed. Every five minutes there’s something else about a fart, poop, smell, or someone’s small bladder. Fart jokes are one thing - jokes about peeing on someone and about teenage genitalia are another.
What’s most disappointing is the animation is horrendous. It’s clunky and poorly rendered, making the movie look more like a high school at project than major motion picture. Again, small studios don’t have the budget to make things Pixar or Universal-level crisp. The story, however, needs to be engaging enough to overlook bad animation.
And the story is just boring. And silly. And for a family/fantasy/horror spin, there’s nothing familial, fantastic, funny or scary. It’s entirely forgettable in every way.
If you want a fun movie this weekend for the family, The War with Grandpa is a much better choice. There’s no audience who’d get anything of value from seeing 100% Wolf unless you want to be 100% weirded out.
100% Wolf
3 out of 10
G, 1hrs 36mins. Animated Family Fantasy Comedy.
Directed by Alexs Stadermann.
Starring Ilai Swindells, Samara Weaving, Rupert Degas, Rhys Darby, Jane Lynch and Jai Courtney.
Now playing at Film.Ca Cinemas, Cineplex Winston Churchill and Cineplex Oakville.
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