Teen Wolf - where howling at the moon is optional

Teen Wolf is the story of Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man without actually using his powers for good. In essence, it’s the Wolf’s origin story, only the hero ultimately comes to realize that his superpowers aren’t truly necessary for him to succeed in his quest: winning a high school basketball game. This is a superhero who doesn’t bother thinking too big, who enjoys belittling his friends and teammates, and who doesn’t want anonymity because if you can’t use your powers to make yourself more popular, what’s the point

Approaching the story as a failed superhero movie, one finds it hard to root for Scott Howard. Blessed with these skills, he parties, steals someone’s girlfriend, insults his friends, strings Boof along, and remains friends with Stiles, without a doubt one of the worst human beings ever conceived of.

And what are the rules for werewolves in this universe? He turns into a wolf at first when he’s mad or horny, but after his first basketball game, when he’s accepted by everyone immediately, he spends most of his time as the Wolf and changes at will. He has super hearing and smell, but also can jump five feet in the air and suddenly becomes a straight-A student without studying. 

That’s not to say the movie is without its charms. Michael J. Fox is as wonderful as always and really has fun in the manic role of Scott Howard, nerd, and Scott Howard, Teen Wolf. Michael Cera does a great awkward Michael J. Fox impression, but he could never play the confident, strutting Wolf. Fox is really one a kind. Mark Arnold also plays a wonderful 80s movie villain in Mick, the rival high school’s star basketball player. "Stick with your own kind, you freak!"

We've seen much of this story before. The nerd undergoes a drastic change, becomes popular, dates the most popular girl in school, alienates his best friends as fame goes to his head, realizes his mistakes at the last possible moment, kisses his female friend who’s been there the whole time, and finds the happy medium between popularity and his old life. It's really no surprise when, in the big game, Scott shows up sans wolf and hits the game-winning free throws with no time to go. He's grown up and won both the game and the girl.

So maybe it's not so much an origin story but a coming of age story. One for the beast in all of us.

Teen Wolf: 3 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs

Extra abs

• The basketball coach is terrific in how little he cares about either the game or his players. “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours of sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never go near a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”
• “With a great power comes a greater responsibility,” Scott's father (also a werewolf) tells his son. It’s almost exactly the lesson Spider-Man learns over and over. 
• That responsibility, apparently, includes visiting his son's school and terrifying the principal into peeing his pants in the hallway.
• As much as I love Jason Bateman, I will NOT be reviewing Teen Wolf 2.