100% Wolf Parent Guide

Freddy Lupin (Ilai Swindells) is the young heir of a long line of werewolves. On his 13^th birthday, Freddy transforms for the first time, but something goes wrong. The light of the moon turns him into a poodle instead of a wolf! Shunned by his family, Freddy heads out on his own to prove himself to be a true wolf, before it’s too late.

In all honesty, the first third of 100% Wolf isn’t bad. The basic premise is cute and there’s an obvious message about the importance of what’s on the inside over what’s on the outside. The problem is that the writers apparently lacked faith in the premise and decided to add in approximately 3,000 subplots to try to pad the runtime. By the end I was exhausted. There are so many plotlines and motivations and antagonists that I just couldn’t keep up. The third act becomes nothing more than a blur of indistinguishable action sequences all trying to tie up the myriad of stories, many of them in cringeworthy ways.

With so many plotlines going on at once, what could have been a positive message becomes muddled. I think the primary message is “Freddy learns that what’s on the inside is what counts”, and there’s also something about overcoming prejudices, but it’s not terribly clear. There are also some insensitive and problematic portrayals of mental illness, including a smattering of ableist language like “coo-coo” and “psycho”. One of the many plot lines is so dark, even I was taken aback. A woman has made a machine that cuts dogs up and makes toupees out of them. No dogs actually get put through the machine, but there’s a lot of talk about what it does and what the implications are. At least 101 Dalmatians had the decency to only allude to skinning puppies instead of showing animated diagrams of it.

In all honesty it’s not the worst children’s movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s a really low bar. My four-year-old thought it was funny, mostly for all the fart and pee jokes. I can’t recommend it based on the muddled messages, ableism, and cringe factor, but you could also do a lot worse. The best praise I can muster is that at least 100% Wolf isn’t boring.