Sometimes you just don’t find the mark…

In theatres tomorrow, 100% Wolf is a colourful affair that should delight the very young but it borrows from too many films that have come before it too really be anything memorable for anyone over the age of six.

This is the story of Freddy Lupin; heir to the leadership of a proud family line of werewolves. Positive he’ll become the most fearsome werewolf ever, Freddy is in for a shock when his first “warfing” goes awry, turning him into a ferocious… poodle. Thrown a bone by the pack elders, Freddy has until the next moonrise to prove he has the heart of a wolf, or risk being cast out forever. With the help of an unlikely ally in a streetwise stray named Batty, Freddy must overcome his pink and fluffy exterior to prove he’s still 100% Wolf.

An Australian production, 100% Wolf hits some of the right buttons as an animated feature but with uneven pacing and an over reliance on a few too many musical montage numbers it at best plays like a sideways knock off of The Secret Life Of Pets franchise.

Coming from the same studio that gave us Maya The Bee, director Alex Stadermann has a long history in the animation industry and here gives us a steady film here with plenty of action that looks great.  Problem is that it tries to cram too much in and moves at a break neck speed trying to resolve many different story arcs.  It’s all incredibly chaotic as we never really get a chance to invest with the characters and the film is trying harder to simply resolve itself then make us care about the different characters.  It’s only saving grace is that it’s super colourful and full of action.  From a visual standpoint you’ll never get bored, but it’s lacking anywhere else that it counts.

There are a few familiar voices in the ensemble like Jai Courtney, Samara Weaving and Jane Lynch but there’s so little emotional investment in this story that lifts from so many other different films it all feels like a hodgepodge of a movie that just copy pasts other elements from previous films into the structure of the narrative.  That’s why it kind of works…but your also pretty bored with it at the same time.

If you want to the little ones to be enthralled by something colourful for 90 minutes or so on the big screen, 100% Wolf is fine but for the adults bringing the wee ones…I’d keep an ear bud in for your favourite podcast or get ready to take a nap.