Review: The Wolverine (second-pass / SPOILERS)

The Wolverine (Second-pass / 3D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 129 mins / Dir. James Mangold



So watching The Wolverine a second time, made some things clearer. And some things, fuzzier. In between viewings, I read the 1982 comic series it's "based" on. That didn't help, either, given that the book and the film share names, locations and that's about it.
Did I enjoy it again? Yes.
Do I have a better handle on what's not quite right with it? Yes…

Three things which would make The Wolverine a more enjoyable movie…

A title-card at the beginning
Around the time Logan wakes up from seeing Jean and he's got his tramp look going on in the woods would be a lovely spot to insert the film's title card. I usually like the technique of putting it at the end (Thor / Captain America), but I feel it works best when you're introducing a character for the first time, and you've spent two hours outlining who they are. We already have a fairly rounded idea of who Wolverine is, so it seems silly to hold it back.
More importantly, this movie is a slow starter. After the atomic blast, we're pretty much on down-time for the next twenty minutes, and the first time I watched the film I found myself wondering "look, have we started yet, or is he going to wake up again?"
Establishing the structure at the beginning of the film would help it flow a lot more smoothly.

More use of the 3D
Yes, I saw it in three dimensions this time, and if I'm being honest it's pointless. There are a few (of the outdoor) scenes with terrible ghosting, a few (of the quieter) scenes where it adds a nice level of depth, but nothing special, and the rest of the time it's barely noticeable. I expect at least two fling-things-at-the-camera moments in a 3D action movie, and they didn't even bother to add those. By the time you add the picture being darkened and every poor sod in the auditorium being asked to pay a surcharge for this, it's not really worth the bother.
That being said: the train-top fight does look phenomenal. Although it looked pretty phenomenal in 2D as well, so go figure.
Either apply the 3D properly, and with good reason, or leave it in its box.

Interesting antagonists
And this was the part that was really underlined re-watching the film. The two main baddies, Yashida and Viper have been barely written, leaving poor old Logan to pick up the slack; and we all know by now that he's no Tony Stark in the fun-stakes.
Viper, other than seeming like Uma Thurman who's been cast to play The LIzard, feels like she should be one of the background mutants in X3. She's evidently got Magic Green Saliva™ (and in true Marvel fashion, stops to explain her talents to at least one doomed cast member), but we don't know why she's at Yashida's laboratory or what she ultimately wants. Viper seems to be in it for herself, but without knowing her goal, we don't know how far she'll go to achieve it, or what her weaknesses are (other than elevator-counterweights). All the pouting-in-green-outfits in the world doesn't make her a worthy opponent for Weapon X.
Yashida, on the other hand, we do know a little about, but he 'dies' shortly after we meet him, then returns at the end as a crossover between IronMonger and Darth Vader. And other than 'really not wanting to die', we don't have any real idea as to his motivation either. The upshot is that when these cardboard cutout bad-guys finally bite the dust, we don't particularly care. And if we're not bothered about that, Wolverine's victory doesn't matter, either.

When you have a hero as gruff and focused as Wolverine, you need to give him enemies with personality. Col Stryker and Deadpool had that*¹. Darth Yashida does not.

It keeps my attention, but why isn't this film more fun?

It's visually dark and thematically po-faced, so yeah.



Hmmm. Ish.



Sadly not.



Marvel enthusiasts will want to see it at the cinema. For everyone else, there's BluRay.



No.



Yes.



There is. It's when Logan is taking on the Ninja-party in the snow village. It's low, but it's there.

How come Logan's hair and beard grows back in the seconds following the atomic blast? The skin-healing I can understand. More to the point, why does it grow back into a style he won't have for another 70 years? Is that his go-to barnet? Obviously he can grow it out into 'The Coiff' (X3) or 'The Tramp' (this film), but is the default blast setting that style? We get to see the Viper chick being bald, but not Logan? That's more than one question, isn't it? And that's another one. Oh.

*¹ Sorry to bring that movie up; I know it's generally considered the black sheep of the mutant family, but I really enjoyed it. For all that it lacks in continuity (although let's face it, how do you break a broken machine?), X-Men Origins: Wolverine, was a shit-ton of fun, and felt like it had consequence. And I genuinely wish I could say the same about this movie, but I can't.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Wolverine (vague spoilers)

The Wolverine (2D / Vague-spoilers. Maybe.)
Cert: 12A / 129 mins / Dir. James Mangold



And here we are, with the sequel to Gavin Hood's much maligned 2009 outing vying for our attention (read: money) in the midst of popcorn season. As it turns out, it's more of a sequel to X3, although there are enough callbacks to the Origins movie to assure us that it hasn't been written out of the continuity.

For the most part, The Wolverine features a cast and characters we haven't had the pleasure of meeting before, and while this is refreshing, it means there's a lot to cram in and anyone who's not a central character is sketched, at best. The story bounds along from scene-to-scene, with a bare minimum of exposition and even less breather time. It seems to me that by having Logan limping around dabbing at his grazes for a large percentage of the film, and by giving him a mystery to solve, a female sidekick and some sardonic verbal comebacks, there's been an attempt to make Wolverine more like Indiana Jones; and six movies down the line is not the time to be attempting that. Although despite the notable lack of blood*¹, he at least gets his claws dirty when it matters.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed The Wolverine a great deal, but the unfolding-mystery, nomadic-warrior, and super-hero influences are all pulling in different directions. The film I watched tonight never got any better than "good", even though I wanted to like it more (that said, the fight on the top of the train is absolutely outstanding). Hang around during the first batch of credits for the airport security-scanner scene. After that, you can go because there's nothing at the very end.

At least there don't appear to be any of the internal-continuity issues that the series has suffered from so far*², and if nothing else it answered one of my questions about the bone-claws.

Some background reading and another viewing required, I think…

Pretty much.



Not as much as I'd have liked.



At this point, I really don't know.



For me, it's a cinema-movie.



No.



Yes, and soon.



Not sure. I thought I might have heard it at two separate points.

Since the Xavier/Magneto 'origins' film became First Class, which other X-Men would you like to see given their own movie?

*¹ I don't expect a gorefest in a 12A, but it really is a remarkably "clean" film considering all the blades it features.
*² Although that could be purely because it takes place on the other side of the world with characters we haven't seen before.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.