The Wolverine is the second attempt at an
X-Men spinoff film. We, once again, feature Wolverine as our main character who
is, once again, played by Hugh Jackman. James Mangold took over the directorial
duties for the film which loosely follows a famous Wolverine comic storyline
where he goes to Japan after being called there to say goodbye to an old
Japanese man whose life Wolverine saved in World War II. The film stars Tao
Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Brian Tee, and
Hal Yamanouchi alongside Jackman.
This
film is a substantial improvement over X-Men
Origins: Wolverine. The problem with saying that is that X-Men Origins: Wolverine set an
extremely low bar for quality on a Wolverine movie. I liked that this movie had
a very particular style to it and stuck to it. This felt very different from
the X-Men movies in a good way and that all came from the directorial vision Mangold
brought to the project.
On
top of a refreshing style, I thought Jackman once again brought a lot to the
role. He really puts everything he has into playing a good Wolverine and does
so in this film. In this film I thought he really elevated his performance well
beyond his last outing in X-Men Origins:
Wolverine. Maybe that was due to the quality of the underlying material,
but in any case there is a great deal more emotional depth and intrigue in his
performance here.
The
final strengths I want to mention are the central conceit of the story and the
quality of the action. Much like X-Men
Origins: Wolverine, the team at Fox found an interesting nugget to build a
quality Wolverine story around. They certainly failed in the case of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and I think
they failed here as well (to a much lesser extent), but the basic ideas they
keep developing are quite interesting conceptually. The action in this film is
also really great. This is the first time we get the chance to see Wolverine
fight believably since X2: X-Men United
and he really goes all out in this film. It was great to see that put to screen
and I’m thankful this is part of the X-verse for that reason alone.
Evidently
there is a lot of positive stuff in this film. I think that the film as a whole
fails, however, because of extremely weak supporting performances, significant
set pieces that took me entirely out of the film, and the failure to stitch
together all of the good elements to make them coalesce and define the film.
The
first major negative, as mentioned, were the supporting performances.
Seriously, these were awful with almost no redeeming qualities. Tao Okamoto and
the limited role by Famke Jansen are ok. But really, everyone else is awful.
Fukushima made me really question whether she had any acting talent at all (and
but for knowing her work on Arrow I
wouldn’t be convinced she doesn’t) and don’t even get me started on Svetlana
Khodchenkova as the Viper. Good god she was terrible. Hugh Jackman is a great
actor and is great as Wolverine but he can’t do it when surrounded by almost
exclusively garbage performances like he is here.
On
top of bad performances, the film has some ridiculous set pieces that rip you
away from the movie you want to be watching. Seeing Wolverine fight a bunch of
ninjas is awesome. That’s what everyone wants to see. They don’t want to see
him jumping on and clawing the top of a bullet train as he is pursued by one
guy with a terrible green screen environment. It just doesn’t work. Further,
the final act of this film is so off the wall that it really doesn’t work. For
starters, it is incredibly predictable in the worst of ways. Then, it takes
what was a slightly more grounded Wolverine film and presents an ending so discordant
with the rest of the film that even the most ardent supporters of this movie will
say that the ending was a letdown.
Finally,
this film doesn’t seem to know what to do with all of the good elements and
completely failed to stitch them together in a good film. Sure it’s got a great
lead performance, a fresh and cool style, some awesome action, and a great core
concept but none of that works if they’re not being used together to produce a
great film and they weren’t here. Everything just felt like it was kind of
there “just because.” It didn’t feel well organized or clearly targeted at a
consistent goal which made it incredibly frustrating for me to watch because I
think this could have been a good film.
Unfortunately,
I think this was a fumble on Fox’s part as they once again found an interesting
story about Wolverine and managed to make a poor movie out of it. There are
redeeming elements of this film without question, but I think that the problems
are too vast to ignore.
Ryan’s
Score: 5/10
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