Plus every interview I saw with Hugh Jackman did not help. He has this line where he says “this is the movie I wanted to make,” it’s not new. He said that line for all of the X-Men and the last Wolverine movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Here is one of the problems with this movie. It’s never good when an actor cast a director to make a movie. When that happens we get movies like “Freddy Got Fingered”, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and “Wrath of the Titans,” and I’m sure you can think of a few more of that type of movie.
I have to say, The Wolverine was not bad. It’s actually better than I had hoped, and I had no hope at all for this film. Here’s the thing. The trailers didn’t sell this movie to me. They look really bad, the lighting, the tone, and the ascetic all look like the film belongs in a bad 90′s movie. I had no interest. I was pleasantly surprised that I like this new Wolverine adventure. It was better than Ironman 3. If I say it was better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine that would not be a real accomplishment because that movie sucks really badly.
I had the opportunity to see The Wolverine this past weekend and it’s a solid film, but before I continue I must warn you of spoilers. If you’re still reading and don’t want to know anything about this movie leave now, because I intend on spoiling the be-Jesus out of this movie. You were warned — here we go. The movie The Wolverine is inspired by the 1982 Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine miniseries. I was hoping The Wolverine to be a character study of Logan like the miniseries was, or even an in-depth look at what it’s like to be an ageless mutant throughout the ages and what connections and life journeys that he had experienced. Nope, that’s not what we get. We get a Wolverine that lusts after another man’s wife that he killed. A women that never had a relationship with him in the books or the movies, but we get an inconsolable Logan obsessing after Jean Grey. ”F” the X-Men and the people who helped and saved his life more than once in the films as well as the books! Nope, he mopes about Jean Grey. Scott Summers’ wife. The film opens with a prologue involving Logan saving a Japanese soldier from the atomic bomb at Nagasaki before shifting to the mountains of Canada where Logan has gone to live like a hermit following the death of Jean Grey in “X-Men: The Last Stand”, where he’s still haunted by his involvement in her death.
I wished that they’d just done a straight up adaptation of Chris Claremont/Frank Miller miniseries, setting it in a moody, neon-lit, crime-riddled version of the ’80s. Another major problem of The Wolverine and one of its biggest surprises is that it’s a direct sequel to X-Men 3: The Last Stand. When First Class came out in 2011, I was sure that we were going ahead and forgetting X-Men 3 ever happened, but instead, The Wolverine doubles down and picks up right where that one left off. I can respect that James Mangold, the director of the film, chose to do it that way. He’s building something by salvaging a failure. For a Wolverine solo film, The Wolverine exceeds the low standards set by X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so it will be regarded as a success, but because this film also co-exists in the world of all movies X-Men that bar was re-raised to a high standard by 2011’s X-Men: First Class, but also the standard being set by Marvel’s own in-house Marvel Cinematic Universe films starring the various Avengers.
Finally, it’s a mess that turns pretty funny at the end, and a post credits sequence on par with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but more bore. That’s a shame. The characters deserve better, and particularly Jackman, who’s 13 years into this whole Wolverine business and plays him with the same effortless charm we’ve come to expect, deserves a whole lot better.
Your beloved Raphy