(Originally posted December 22nd, 2017)
After the mediocrity of the first Wolverine-focused movie, I was anxious about diving into this one. Thankfully, The Wolverine (2013) was everything X-Men Origins should have been, and is not only a great Wolverine story, but a great companion piece to the X-Men franchise. Starring Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, Tao Okamoto as Mariko Yashida, Rila Fukushima as Yukio, Hiroyuki Sanada as Shingen, Will Yun Lee as Kenuichio Harada, Svetlana Khodchenkova as Dr. Green/Viper, Haruhiko Yamanouchi as Yashida, Brian Tee as Noburo Mori and Famke Janssen as Jean Grey.
One of the biggest problems with X-Men Origins is that it never felt like there were any stakes, as the main character was one with a pre-determined fate and is generally invincible. This movie does a fantastic job of setting the stakes early. Not only do they imply very early on that Logan can, and will, die, but they actually find a way to strip Logan of his healing factor, which is huge. Suddenly, he's mortal, and everything just feels heavier. Granted, I knew that due to the existence of Logan as a movie, he can't die here yet, but there actually felt like there was stakes this time around, which is nice. The themes of the movie play into that as well. It's a topic that tends to come up a lot with long-living people in film where they outlive everyone they care about and question their own mortality, and it's just as interesting here as it is in any other movie/show that raises this question.
 |
| Hugh Jackman as Wolverine |
Japan is beautiful. It goes beyond just being a nice change of pace from literally every other movie I've seen this month which all took place primarily in America. The cinematography is exquisite, and this might be one of the most gorgeous movies I've seen this month. The landscapes, the culture, the cities, it made me want to go to Japan, and while I've always wanted to travel the world, Japan was never very high up my list. I also love that the cast is 95% made up of Japanese actors. In an age where a lot of films get criticised for whitewashing, it was refreshing to see just 2 white people in the entire thing. One of them, of course, is Hugh Jackman, and seriously, I'm getting tired of praising this performance, so I'll just move on and say the entire supporting cast also hit bullseyes.
 |
| Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper |
Yukio was a very interesting character to introduce early on, and her abilities are fascinating. She can sense when people are going to die, and they surprisingly get a lot out of this ability. There's a moment early on with her abilities that seems a little odd, but actually functions as a clue to something later in the movie, and I loved it. The one thing I didn't love, however, is the moment where she sees Logan's death, and then the moment comes, but he doesn't die, obviously. They never explain why she was wrong this one time, especially when they make such a big deal of saying how she's never wrong. Stuff like that just irks me, just as it irks me when female characters are only there to get captured, and that's kind of Mariko's role in the movie. Granted, she does other stuff, her character's interesting, and she kicks ass, which is what makes it so frustrating when she gets captured a total of 3 times. She does do other, important, things in the movie beyond getting captured, and like I said, her character's an interesting one, so I'll let it slide.
 |
| Rila Fukushima as Yukio |
The only other thing that kinda bothered me is that the movie never took the time to show how the situations and conflicts in the film affected anyone besides Logan. After the funeral scene, for example, and everything that happens there, we never see how it affects anyone besides Wolverine. And, I get it, the movie's called 'The Wolverine', the focus should be on him. But the other characters are all so great that I wanted to see more of them. Some characters disappear from the film for 30+ minutes only to show up again out of nowhere. Oddly, there was too much Wolverine in this movie. What we get with him is great, and really compelling in some parts, but I felt like I could have used some of that with the other characters as well. Finally, and I don't really have a segue for this, so I'll just say it here: that train fight scene was one of the best Wolverine fight scenes I've ever seen. Everything about that fight was executed perfectly, and I had a cheesy grin on my face the whole time.
 |
| THAT fight scene |
The Wolverine (2013) is a great movie, if a little flawed. I feel like the character is getting just a little old at this point, and I'm glad we got a break from him in First Class, but we'll see how they address his character moving forward, especially with 'Logan' on the 31st. For now, I'm satisfied enough. 8/10.
Tomorrow: the review's some kind of Suicide Squad.
No comments:
Post a Comment