Vivian Gandillon (Agnes Bruckner, Peaceful Warrior) is a woman with a secret still haunted by moonlit memories of a tragedy. Graphic novelist Aiden Galvin (Hugh Dancy, Black Hawk Down) is a man running from his past. Both young people run into each other late one evening in a Bucharest church, the former looking for a place of solace while the other is doing research on the area’s unique fascination with wolves.

There’s an instant attraction between them but Vivian knows she can’t let herself fall prey to it. You see, she’s already betrothed to Gabriel (Olivier Martinez, Taking Lives) and everyone, including her mysterious and dangerous cousin Rafe (Bryan Dick, Brothers of the Head), within her immediate circle is going to make sure she goes through with the marriage. Why? Vivian and her brethren are loup garoux, shape-shifters, half-human/half-wolf hybrids living in constant fear of extermination.

But love knows no boundaries and Aiden will not be intimidated by rules or mores he had no part in creating. He is certain the two of them can figure out a way to make things work, and even though the attempt could put both their lives in mortal danger together he’s positive their everlasting love will manage to fulfill the cliché and really conquer all.

Based on the best selling young adult novel, Blood and Chocolate is Romeo & Juliet-style love story between a sexy human man and gorgeous werewolf woman. There are few surprises and even fewer scares, the script by Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and Christopher Landon doesn’t do a thing we haven’t seen countless times before. It’s all so routine and rudimentary the picture is borderline narcoleptic, and if not for some delicately subtle performances and a few gorgeously surreal visual touches the thing would be nothing more than a complete waste of time.

Pity, because director Katja Von Garnier has shown remarkable skill up to now. The German director has made two films I very much love, 1997’s Bandits (not to be confused with the Bruce Willis/Billy Bob Thornton/Cate Blanchett caper comedy of the same name) and 2004’s HBO docudrama Iron-Jawed Angels with Hilary Swank and Angelica Huston. Those two features showcased an astonishing skill both in the handling of actors and in producing visual wonderments. There is a delicate, almost sublime grace to both of these that borders on the magnificent, and even though this particular film is nothing more than a grade-B genre throwaway I still couldn’t be hopeful her effervescent touch would remain intact.

And at times it does. There is a beautiful early sequence of the wolf pack coming together for a monthly ritualistic hunt that is absolutely haunting, humans sprinting through a moonlit forest before leaping into the air like gymnasts only to have their bodies shimmer and change into the lithe four-legged features of a wolf. These are breathtaking moments, eerily beautiful and delicately unsettling all at the same time. They are a dreamlike aria to the film that might have been, the rest of the picture bogged down in a flurry of boring car chases, fisticuffs and gunfire.

The actors do what they can. Bruckner is quite good as the haunted Vivian, while Dancy (as deliciously sexy an actor as I’ve seen in ages) just exudes rakish charm as the object of her affections Aiden. Best of all is veteran German character actress Katja Reimann. A frequent collaborator with Von Garnier, Reimann just pulsates with sexual pathos and energy, the almost overwhelming forlorn despair she feels at having to watch the love of her life Gabriel take up with others viscerally palpable. She’s wonderful, a third act scene between her and Martinez as they deal with a mutual loss so emotional and tearfully animated it’s almost scary.

Too bad the rest of the film isn’t up to her high standards. I kept watching the thing hoping it would get better, that somehow Von Garnier and company would manage to subvert all the crap inherent in the screenplay and take the picture to a more entertaining plateau. Unfortunately that hope never came to fruition, Blood and Chocolate leaving a bad taste in my mouth that just wouldn’t disappear.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)