The Wolverine (2013)

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nTitle: The Wolverine (2013)

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nDirector: James Mangold

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nCast: Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Tao Okamoto, RilanFukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Hal Yamanouchi

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nThe Wolverine is the summer movie that slipped by me, it wasnnot a top priority in my list because there were so many other summer flicksnthat seemed more mind blowing, I figured I’d get to it eventually. The trailersnhadn’t blown me away and to be honest, I didn’t think it was going to be good,nI guess it had something to do with how much I loathed X-Men Origins: Wolverinen(2009), the last Wolverine solo movie. You know, the crappy one, the one thatnshould’ve never happened. Well, I am happy to report that this latest Wolverinenmovie completely ignores that last film, the story basically unfolds as if thatnlast Wolverine film had never happened. And I am also happy to report that ThenWolverine is a solid film, a good Wolverine movie at freaking last! All younneed to know is that you should see this one as a continuation of X-Men: ThenLast Stand (2009). So what exactly made The Wolverine not suck?

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nThis time around we meet up with Wolverine as he is tryingnto forget his connections with the X-Men; he can’t deal with the fact that henessentially killed the love of his life, Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Standn(2009), so he’s gone off to Canada to live a life of solitude, disconnectednfrom everyone. He’s still a do gooder, but he wants to be left alone.nUnfortunately for him, the past won’t let him be. You see, in 1945, during thenatomic bombing of Nagasaki, Wolverine saved a soldier named Yashida from thenatomic blast. The man feels a debt with Logan, and so as Yashida lies in hisndeath bed, he wants to see Logan one last time, to thank him for having savednhis life. But Yashida wants more than to thank Wolverine. As it happens, afternLogan saved his life, Yashida  ended upnbecoming the head honcho of a major corporation that specializes inntechnological advances and so, Yashida wants to use this high tech to somehownextract Wolverines healing factor. The problem is that extracting Logan’snhealing factor would kill him. Yashida thinks Logan will agree because Logannsees his immortality as ‘a curse’. The question arises: will Logan agree to donthe process, or will he find a reason to continue living?

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nThe first thing that worried me about this film was JamesnMangold directing. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing because Mangold hasndirected some decent films in his time, Copland (1997), Girl Interrupted (1999)nand 3:10 to Yuma (2007) come to mind, but in my opinion he is not one of thosendirectors who has a distinctive style or anything, he doesn’t put a stamp onnhis films. Plus, I mean we had Darren Aronofsky almost direct this one and thatnprospect got me jazzing my pants. Sadly, it never came to be and we gotnMangold, a director I see as a ‘directors for hire’, kind of like Joe Johnston.nThese are directors who do a good job of directing a film, it will look great, it’llntell it’s story, but the film wont have a stamp on it, it wont be unique innany way. These directors simply do their job as directors, they follow the studiosnrequests and voila! a product is sold. If I had to say something distinguishes anMangold film is that he gets good performances out of his actors, he focuses onnthe characters and the story, which of course is a good thing on any film,  and in the end itsnsomething that benefits this particular film, because Wolverine is a character that’s beggingnto be explored.

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nGood thing is that on this film we get to know Logan betternthan any other X-Men or Wolverine film that’s been released. This movie is notnjust one action sequence to the next, or one crappy cgi filled moment to thennext, nope, on this one we spend some quality time with the character. Kudos tonthe writers for coming up with some really cool moments in terms of things thatncan happen to Wolverine, as a comic book geek, I was enthralled with some ofnthe events that unfold here, not gonna spoil it though! The film does a goodnbalancing act between character development and solid action. Ever wanted tonsee Wolverine battling a bunch of ninjas? You’ll see it here. Ever wanted tonsee Wolverine go up against an atomic bomb? It happens here. There’s thisnawesome sequence where a bunch of bad guys chase Logan on top of a bulletntrain, cool stuff. Exciting! But we are not left without the more introspectivenmoments, moments were we see Logan falling in love anew or moments when Logannremembers the love of his life, Jean Grey. Also, this is the first film of all these X-Men/Wolverine films that made me realize that essentially Logan’s an immortal? Kind of like  Highlander (1986)? They really put a focus on this aspect of the character which they hadn’t done so much before, so we get Logan dealing with some of the issues that an immortal has to deal with, like watching his loved ones die. 

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nThe only complain I might have is that it was a bit toonsimilar thematically speaking to films like Prometheus (2012) and Blade Runnern(1982), because all these films are about a person close to death that’snsearching for eternal life, which brings the movie down a notch in terms ofnoriginality, but aside from that? It’s all cool in my book. The villains werencool, I have to admit I loved the way they depicted ‘Viper’ the snake lady withnthe poisonous tongue…cool character, truly a threat to Logan. Hugh Jackman asnWolverine was great, this is the sixth time he has portrayed the character, andnwell, by now he’s got it down flat. This Wolverine is a bit closer to whatnWolverine is like in his solo stories, alone, depressed  and pissed off, always on the edge. I stillnhave to wonder what Darren Aronofsky would have done with the character, Aronofskynended up not directing because he wrote a script that was too ‘R’ rated, andnmuch darker in tone, the studio didn’t want to mess with their kid friendlyngolden calf, so Aronofsky dropped out. With this kind of film, the studio wantsnit to be PG-13 because they want to aim it at kids,  and Aronofsky didn’t want to make a kids film,nhe wanted to make a serious take on the character. I’d say that Mangold managednto deliver the goods for the studio (the film still ended up being PG-13) butnat the same time, it’s not all that kid friendly, its PG-13 but it’s notnstrawberry shortcake. I mean, Wolverine is spewing profanities left and right onnthis one. Wolverine says bitch, asshole, he says shit quite a few times…andnfinally he utters the king of all profanities “fuck” on one occasion, becausenthat’s what the MPAA allows on a PG-13 film. You get to say one fuck, so younbetter use it wisely! I guess this was the studios version of giving the filmnan ‘edge’. There’s also a scene in which Wolverine walks in on a bad guy as henis with a bunch of prostitutes walking around in their underwear, but that’s asnfar as the “edge” on this film goes. Bottom line is that maybe some scenesnmight be a bit too much for little kids.

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nAnd speaking of little kids, I saw this one on a packedntheater filled with little kids! It was a cool experience because I got to seena bunch of kids hollering and cheering for Wolverine every time he didnsomething cool or heroic, I mean I actually saw this little kid super excitednduring the train sequence, it took me back to when I was a little kid. At thensame time, I saw another little kid next to me say something like “enough!” whennthe movie got a little too talky. What us adults call character developmentnbores the hell out of the kids. So anyways, that’s my two cents on ThenWolverine, not a bad movie at all, not the piece of crap I was expecting andnit’s a million times better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One more thing,nafter the movie is over, wait for the extra ending that will have younsalivating for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which willnreunite the X-Men from the past and the future in one gigantic, orgasmic comicnbook movie. This film will mark the return of Bryan Singer to the X-Mennfranchise which he helped launch with the highly successful X-Men (2000) and X2n(2003). Anxiously awaiting that one, it looks promising!

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nRating: 4 out of 5  

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