Brotherhood of the Wolf @ Amazon

It’s just one of the universal truths about French 18th-century martial-arts werewolf films: you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. This burgeoning genre is most famously represented by 2001’s Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des loups).

This movie was a surprise hit all over the world, including in the USA, where it became the 2nd highest-grossing French film in two decades. Sacrebleu! It’s supposedly based on factual events, and on the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan. It’s a long movie, and people either appreciated the insane genre mash-up, or found themselves bored to tears by it. The only thing everyone could agree on is that Monica Bellucci is hot. Among Criticker’s user base, its FCQ (Film Contentiousness Quotient, details here), is 50.06 — pretty high.

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Here are a couple opinions from Criticker users.

WoozyB: “The movie is an explosion of genres, but I’m a sucker for the supernatural and historical fiction, so I loved it. Also, Monica Bellucci as a spy for Pope pretending to be a courtesan. Awesome.”

knyttelol: “A long, embarrassing half-rock video, half-videogame, epic pile of crap about mute Indians kicking ass for Frenchmen, and ripe women enjoying selling their bodies.”
Observation: knyttelol’s review actually makes it sound kind of cool!

Last week’s poll has been closed, and you have spoken: Eyes Wide Shut is GREAT!

And just to prove that we don’t always have to disagree, here are two more films that are the opposite of contentious:
Unanimously Crap (FCQ 0.97): Dungeons & Dragons. Geekdom cried.
Unanimously Sweet (FCQ 2.92): Seven Samurai. Classic Japanese action — a nearly perfect film.