New "Critics" & Internatonal TV Spots For Hugh Jackman's THE WOLVERINE

The other day I bought the X-Men trilogy on Blu-Ray for 10 bucks a piece. They also contained special features for each film which I found pretty cool.

I just wanted to post the order of films for the heck of it and wonder what you guys think will come next...

-X-Men: First Class
-X-Men Origins: Wolverine
-X-Men
-X2: X-Men United
-X-Men: The Last Stand
-The Wolverine
-X-Men : Days of Future Past (or would this go after First Class since this futuristic timeline is supposed to be from the previous X-Men trilogy?)

And now we have a X-Force and Magneto movie in the works too! :O

I want a Magneto films to focus on the construction of Genosha or perhaps Magneto's rise to becoming a bad-ass leader. We could possibly see X-Men characters such as Blob, Toad, Sabertooth, Juggernaut and even Quake appear! I don't know, I'm just a little puzzled on where they'll take the direction after films such as XMFC and DOFP.

What do you guys think???

I can't wait!!!

It would be cool to put wolvie in a situation like The Raid:Redemption.a decent story,bad ass choreography,make the audience feel how physically drained he is.hopefully this one is close

"Hey, it's better than the last one!" - Is my favorite.

A Wolverine movie has always been a bit of an odd idea. The character might be just another member of the team in the comics, but on screen it’s always been his show. The first two X-Movies got that right: driven by Logan’s brooding over his past, and his simmering sexual tension with Jean Grey. At least part of the problem with X-Men 3 and the last Wolverine film was that they lost the focus on Logan and spread themselves too thinly. Finally with The Wolverine we’re back to what made the first films so good: a clear focus on Logan, and his relationships with the people around him.

Starting out in World War II Japan, the film moves very quickly into a post-X-Men 3 world where Logan lives under a rock, is friends with a bear and is failing to deal with his killing of the Phoenix-possessed Jean Grey. It’s a bit of a mis-step, that nearly ends in a tumble with a badly justified bar-fight. Fortunately at that point Rila Fukushima enters the fray as murderous pixie dream girl, Yukio, and the movie very quickly finds its feet.


See our interviews with the cast and crew from The Wolverine at the World Premiere here

From there we head to Japan, where director, James Mangold plays his real trump card: depowering Logan. The difficulty with un-killable heroes is always that the peril has to be to those around him. The only threat to the hero is emotional, which all too often results in them coming off as an over-powered angsty teenager. The joy of stripping that invulnerability away is that the threat is much more immediate. Suddenly we’re genuinely concerned for Logan in addition to those around him, and it makes the film much more emotionally engaging than it might otherwise have been.

It also makes the action much more tense. Even if we know that Mangold isn’t going to kill off his eponymous character, we’re never quite sure whether he’ll be walking away from the present conflict, or crawling. The result is raised stakes all round.

It’s also worth pointing out how well the action is handled in the film. Every fight has a purpose, driving the story forward, rather than acting as a distraction. Mangold uses steady cameras and wide shots to allow us to understand what’s happening, and the there are some clever and original ideas. It is true that we do get some of the old clichés: train top fights, and people being thrown from gantries spring to mind, but they both work well, and they’re balanced out by a scene where Logan takes on hundreds of ninjas.

What really allows The Wolverine to triumph though is the sense of fun that runs throughout. The film deals with a character who has suffered immensely, the story it tells is one with Shakespearean levels of deceit and betrayal, the tone is dramatic, and yet it still manages to be fun. We’ve known for over a decade that Jackman can deliver a cutting quip, but Mangold makes sure that we’re not overly relying on those quips to stop us wallowing in melancholy.

All in, The Wolverine is a refreshingly good entry in the X-Men franchise that completely wipes out the nasty taste Origins: Wolverine left. In fact, it might very well be the best of the bunch. Mangold’s never been more suited to a project, getting to be gritty, intelligent and fun all at the same time, and that translates into a movie that for the very first time, genuinely feels like an X-Men comic on screen. As good as a Wolverine movie was ever going to get.

(5/5)

One of the 3 fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

This movie looks better than X3 and Origins.

@gambgel If you read the review well, you would see that the reviewer meant that they didn't have Wolverine have a clear focus in X3.

It’s a worrying development when even I, Bleeding Cool’s resident comic book movie fanatic, confess to a certain superhero fatigue. Now we’ve all been spoiled by Joss Whedon’s triumphant take on The Avengers, seeing just one guy reluctantly pull on his super-suit to dispense summary justice to yet another identikit CGI hulk’o’lizard or giant robot seems, well, a bit …meh.

It looks as if the same thought has occurred to Lauren Shuler Donner, the production brains behind Fox’s suite of X-Men films. Fox hired James Mangold, best known for Walk The Line and 3:10 To Yuma, to craft something a little different this time.

Parlour

When it works, it really works. But for my money the pace is a shade uneven. Turning over the final act to an (admittedly thrilling) standard CGI smackdown of just the kind that the film has been skilfully avoiding for the past hour seems like a cop-out. The Wolverine promises much. And gives you just enough to realise what you’re missing.

Because for its first hour The Wolverine is barely a superhero movie at all. It’s a noirish mystery, with a flavour of 1974 Robert Mitchum thriller The Yakuza. Unless you’ve never seen a film before you’ll have a pretty good idea of who’s pulling the strings from early on: but those strings are so tangled and knotted that they have a pretty good story of their own.

The Wolverine

Will Yun Lee, veteran of a million police procedurals, is the knottiest of those threads. Of Korean heritage, as far as Hollywood’s concerned he’s Japanese enough to play a character billed as The Silver Samurai. His character, Kenuichio Harada, isn’t exactly the Silver Samurai you’d expect from the comics. He’s the cool, conflicted leader of a team of ninjas who turn up periodically through the film to do cool, cinematic, beautifully choreographed ninjtsu stuff.

Rila Fukushima plays a more straightforward character. The Batman was softened and humanised when he got a sidekick. The Wolverine doesn’t seem like the kind of character you give a sidekick to. Jubilee notwithstanding. And, in fairness, Yukio is not just a sidekick. But if she went on to have more adventures with Logan, I’d be fine with that. She has a good mix of mutant abilities and martial arts chops, and a dynamite hairdo.

Robin

But of course this is Hugh Jackman’s film. Second only to Robert Downey Jr. he’s the most charismatic actor currently playing a Marvel Comics superhero. Second to no-one he’s the nicest movie superstar operating right now. And he’s got abs you could grate parmesan on. If you’re a Jackman fan, you won’t be disappointed here.

If you’ve been studying the film’s IMDB page your interest might have been piqued by Famke Janssen’s presence on the cast list. Especially since this film is set after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. In which, you may recall, she end up on the business end of an adamantium tummy-tuck.

Here Jean Grey has gone from Dark Phoenix to Angel Of Death. She represents Logan’s inner desire to give up the Wolverine mantle and embrace mortality. And, in The Wolverine, he comes a good deal closer than you might expect to getting his wish.

Viper

Something happens early in this film to compromise Logan’s healing factor. It’s not altogether clear if it’s removed altogether: he’s still pretty durable, but we’re talking James Bond / John McClane levels of durability rather than the usual ‘getting shot in the head and walking it off’ level.

That makes for a more perilous set of adventures for Wolverine as he tries to work out who is trying to kidnap an industrialist’s daughter, who is trying to steal his DNA, and what kind of underwear Viper wears underneath that frankly indecent costume.

Train

There’s a superb fight in and around a bullet train with some seamless CGI. There’s a beautiful multi-archer takedown. And an atomic bomb goes off. In the first five minutes.

This is a good film. It’s not quite as good as it wants to be. But it ain’t just another superhero flick, and you’ve got to reward that ambition. Besides; it’s a whole lot better than the first Wolverine solo joint.

The 3D’s not terrible, but not essential either.

And I have a question: After the Wolverine takes a lot of damage, his hair grows back in that style. So given that he starts the movie in full Grizzly Adams mode, how does he ever have a haircut?

Oh, and stick around as the credits roll. There’s something you’ll want to see.


Here's Bleeding Cool's review.

Critics: "Exceptionally mediocre!" "Somewhat of an improvement over the last film, still not enough to warrant its existence!" "Hugh Jackman is... he wears clothes in this one, and has a haircut!"

can't wait. this past month proved critics have no idea what they are talking about so I could care less what they think.

@TheWolverine08

Your worrying too much!

Its going to be a good movie! Don't read anymore reviews!

Go in to the theater with no baggage of hate......you'll enjoy it better....I know I will!

@Brainiac3000 Thanks for the advice. I think critics are showing more and more that with their complete lack of knowledge with comics, their reviews with CBMs can't be trusted.

@Brianiac3000

I agree. As much as id love to see a Wolverine, In full costume and R Rated it wont ever happen as long as its owned by Fox. PG-13 movies usualy do better at the Box Office than R rated films.

His claws look like crap.

@Jackraow You do know that in Avengers one man got about 50-60%of the spotlight right? Iron Man.

@HOOThoot True. I think CBMs like Avengers and The Dark Knight have raised the standards high, it is almost impossible for most CBMs to make the cut.

Hahahaha, I just wanna sit back and listen to Marvel/Wolverine fans give The Wolverine the caveats they refused to give MOS.

Hey guys, The Wolverine is currently sitting at 80% with Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, they're only 5 reviews, but it is a good sign.