I was SO looking forward to The Wolverine. Expectations, meet being met. And I have to say, it was an amazingly good time at the movies.
I was SO looking forward to The Wolverine. Expectations, meet being met. And I have to say, it was an amazingly good time at the movies.
I am not ashamed to say I was moved by a few of the character scenes, when we see Logan and what he goes through on a daily basis. He can’t be killed, but he has nightmares every night, and he had to kill the one woman he loved, Jean Grey, in the Brett Ratner bullshit X-Men: The Last Stand movie that we can barely remember. The tragedy of being The Wolverine is right there on the screen. Sure, he is almost invulnerable and immortal, but is that a blessing or a curse?
Logan goes to Japan to say goodbye to a Japanese soldier he saved in WWII when one of the atomic bombs dropped. However, once there, nothing is as it seems, and the movie sprints from there. Lots of characters, lots of intrigue, and a whole lot of “snikt”ing.
It can make for some stellar action when you have a character that can take bullets, keep fighting, and slices bad guys up with razor-sharp claws, but at the end of the day, why do you care about this character? This movie gives you the reasons, and in doing so, gives you what we’ve all been waiting for in a Wolverine movie.
Hugh Jackman is Wolverine the same way Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man. You just can’t see anyone else playing the role. Can you see someone else other that Christian Bale playing Batman? OK, bad example. Jackman makes you feel everything Logan is going through. What good is eternal life when you have nothing to live for? You feel the melancholy, you feel the pain, and most importantly with Wolverine, you feel the anger.
Clearly, Fox learned from X-Men: First Class, AND the last Wolverine movie. It’s nice to see growth and a respect and attention to detail for a comic book character. As we all know, sometimes you get that in the summer with comic book movies, and sometimes you get Green Lantern or Man of Steel. But we’re looking at the same template here as X-Men: First Class: A historical backdrop, the real world, and at times you are just watching a mystery/thriller/action movie with superpowers. Plus, everything is far more believable than the last Mission: Impossible movie.
Sure, there were some things that could have used a little more massaging. There are SO many villains in this movie, and at some point you want to see different motivations, or at least see them explained a bit more so you can have a little bit of empathy for them, which makes them better villains rather than caricatures.
Also, enough with the shaky camera, which was used in a VERY ham-handed way. We know they are running. Stop shaking the fucking camera, and that computer generated bear looked horrible. He may as well have been wearing a hat and telling you to prevent forest fires. But these things are nitpicky and can be overlooked.
There are no costumes… sort of… just some fetish-wear, and the body count is very, very high. So is this superhero movie? Is Wolverine even a superhero? The answer is that it doesn’t matter. Wolverine is a violent, tragic character with superpowers who demands your attention and your empathy. He gets both, and in doing so we get one of the best movies of the summer.
–Chris Mancini