Saturday, July 27, 2013

The Wolverine Review

The Wolverine was originally to be a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, except the fans ended up hating that one, even though the general public just did not mind it. So when James Mangold took over, he decided to adapt Frank Miller's acclaimed limited series as it would have been after X-Men: The Last Stand, but as a stand alone film. Stand alone means that you would not need to watch X-Men: The Last Stand to understand it, but this seemed a tad odd with Jean Gray in the film. Go into a mindset that you have not seen any X-Men film and watch it, you will see that through the interactions with Jean Gray and Mariko, the film manages to, in a few sentences explain everything and work stand alone.

This is the sixth time Hugh Jackman has played Logan, the fifth time in the starring role so one would expect him to have gotten stale while playing the character. Well, each time he has played the character it has been a different mindset. What is the mindset this time, it links greatly to the films central theme: to find a meaning in an immortal life. Jackman plays Logan again greatly, showing a troubled character, giving a few comedic moments and still playing the jackass we all know and love, plays him perfect. Aside from Jackman, the Japanese actors are relatively unknown to me so to judge them would be a tad too unfair.

The story is very good, it just is very good. Starts off in the Yukon, travels to Japan and is met with a huge conspiracy orchestrated by the Silver Samuri. The plot is done very well, partly due to the fact that James Mangold is a better director than Bryan Singer. The setting in Japan allows for a lot of freedom to be put in place simply because it breaks off a lot of the walls of restrictions another New York setting would behold. Mangold's direction makes us care about even the stupidest of characters, like Harada.

This is a shorter review, but the film was very good and I recommend watching it. Jackman is again good, after having the Rock train him and Mangold is a good director, good enough to restore the X-Men films back to their previous position in the comicbookmovie hierarchy. So I give this Wolverine Film a :

7.5/10

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