Review of The Wolverine (2013) by Gamed2Long — 29 Jul 2013

Some people may argue this point but in my opinion this is the best X-men film yet. (First class being runner up). As you can't treat a film that is 5th in a series, when it intentionally relates back to events in other movies, as stand alone, other movies must be mentioned. Briefly X-men 1,2,3 suffer the plight of a lot of comic book films. They feel satisfied to show you the characters without really many of the actors really owning them or doing anything unique with them. Halle Berry for instance can act. When she played storm though she went completely one dimensional. Comic books are things which have been adapted and re-interpreted for decades. And the transition to film has worked a lot better for some comics than others. X1 to X3 were treated as ensemble films with some actors getting bigger pieces than others, when they should have been treated more like overlapping story-line's with common characters. Truer to the medium.

This is the first X-man film to successfully get away from all that. Now X-man origins gave it a solid try but none of the characters, including a woefully underused gambit, were given any emotional depth in that film. X-men first class was a good ensemble film, but was still an ensemble film. None of the characters were particularly dynamic, though it was at least well done.

This film is about Wolverine. Now Wolverine as far as X-men go has always suffered the downside of being a bit too overpowered with his healing abilities. This film does a good job of making, and showing his fragile side. This is accomplished in two parts, with some unknown (Spoilers) ailment he suffers and with dream's/hallucinations of the late Jean Gray. Something which comes off as a bit odd because in X1-X3 she didn't have much of a romance story arc with wolverine. Even though she plays the roll in this film beautifully. In the comic she does and it would have been nice to be treated to maybe a scene near the beginning, a classy black and white of SOMETHING happening between those two. Maybe during a side mission somewhere around the events of X1 or X2. Just a little something to show their romance bloomed beyond anything rated G.

Aside from hallucinations of Cyclops under-dressed girlfriend there is wolverines new found physical frailness to contend with. Frailty is something hard to execute correctly in film. Too much and your hero is a sissy. Not enough and you wonder what the holdup is. In this movie with some cinematic tricks reminiscent of the opening to saving private Ryan, they manage to show Hugh Jackman struggling with a weakness he is not used to, and they manage to a accomplish this with great success, and without holding him back.

The plot of this films is also quite good up until the last 20 minutes or so. People have commented the film lacks a real villain. And its true. But some stories aren't necessarily about bringing down the bad guy. A big part of this film is Wolverine trying to save someone, and trying to save himself spiritually in the process. To that end being attacked by numerous anonymous henchmen with no clear view who is after him works really well, though it was obviously simplified a bit in the adaptation.

There are moments of comic book excellence in the cinematography where without anything being colored in, or split screened you can almost feel the artists vision leaping off of the page. And it is really cool when a film accomplishes that. So many comic book films try with those iconic images and fall so short.

Having 90% of the film take place in a slightly stylized Japan also works really well as both the character and audience feel like they are on unfamiliar but quite beautiful ground.

I have three criticisms of this film. The first is in the ending of the film a couple of things happen for unclear reasons. Minor characters act in a certain way, uncharacteristic of what little we know of them. It comes off as sloppy and rushed. Secondly The scenes with Jean Gray need backing up. She was hauntingly beautiful for Wolverine's internal monologue, but if I didn't know the mythos it would have been creepy. Finally right at the end of the film something happens to wolverine's claws. And in the teaser of X-men future past this is apparently not corrected. But the last two things are minor annoyances really and the film makes me look forward to days of future past.

On the grand scale of comic book films, The dark Knight and Watchmen being the best, The second hulk and green hornet being the worst (of this iteration at least) This film falls short of being the best. But shows the franchise is capable of moving in the right direction. It just needs to keep going the same way it went with this film and carry it just a bit further.