BLOOD & CHOCOLATE [PG-13]
It is a fairly common storyline — boy meets girl, girl refuses boy, boy persists until he finds out girl is a pureblood werewolf. This tepid, Romanian-shot, sort-of horror story is about 19-year-old sweet thing Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), who is pursued by starving artist/lycophile Aiden (Hugh Dancy), who is unaware that Vivian is a werewolf. She and the “den” are fully protected by their master, Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), who forces humans who have dishonored any member of their pack on a life-and-death chase through the woods. Working from Annette Curtis Klause’s young adult novel, usually skilled German director Katja von Garnier takes a standard story and makes it even more standard. Lazily filling her world with a too-attractive cast and an obvious rock score, von Garnier seems lost as to where she wants it to go, or even what genre the film is (it only works occasionally as a romantic fantasy). The CGI effects would have been mildly captivating ten years ago, but look pretty horrendous today, and the make-up effects are not much better. The boast, “From the makers of Underworld,” is an appropriate one, as those movies are also just as unfocused. Avoid this barking mess and stick with the old modern stand-bys — The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and Dog Soldiers. –Richard Caron