Ya know, it's the continued support of both of you readers that keep my mojo flowing from my brain, to my fingers, to the page before your eyes. For this, I thank you whole-heartedly.
A friend of mine, that I wish I had more time to get to know before I was forced to move to the hottest location short of hell....Southwest Florida, told me I have done 4 negative reviews in a row. I felt obligated to review one I liked. And if you wish to argue with me about the hot location I mentioned, send your arguments to Dave@whohonestlycares.org
On with the show!...
The Wolverine (2013)
Starring Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, and Rila Fukushima
Overview - Following the tragic death of his beloved Jean Grey, in "X-Men: The Last Stand", Wolverine (Jackman) finds himself drifting through Japan, trying to outrun his past. Until one day young Mariko (Fukushima) approaches him with an offer from her employer. The gift he's been searching for for centuries. Mortality.
Review - To say I was stoked when I heard there was going to be another wolverine movie would be....well....a lie. After the atrocious "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" back in 2009, I was just hoping to hear that director Gavin Hood had returned everyone's money and then promptly performed a self-labotamy to remove any guilt for creating such garbage. Then I heard the next installment of Hugh Jackman's pectoral dances was going to be directed by James Mangold. Now, when I say it's a movie about his pectoral dances, it's no joke. He went out of his way to show more cleavage. He even talked to Dwayne Johnson about methods to bulk up for Wolverine after seeing the routine he used to become huge for "Pain and Gain". Even going so far as to go on a dehydration diet where he wouldn't drink anything for 36 hours before every shirtless scene. Tied to Mangold, this film showed a lot of promise. Mangold has given us such movies as "3:10 to Yuma", "Girl Interrupted", and "Walk the Line". I started to feel a little better, until I saw the plot line. Superhero doesn't want to be super any more. Wants to give up his immortality. Sounds a bit like a direct rip off of "Superman 2" if you ask me. Once I saw the first trailer, I realized I was overreacting. I started to get hopeful when I saw the second trailer for the film (featured above) because it showed that it might be more like a film, and not a piece of crap. Mangold has had a good track record of movies, so I was forced to sell my kidney to afford to accompany my brother in-law to the theater to check this one out.
When Hugh Jackman takes the reigns as the lead in ANY film, you can bet your sweet bippy that he's going to act his butt off. I can not recall any film I have seen him in where I could walk away saying he did a bad job. He has taken some crappy roles ("Butter") but never given a bad performance. That, on top of the fact that Hugh said he loves the character of Wolverine, and hopes he can play him many more times before he has to let his abs sag. His main costars in this movie are virtual "unknown"s. Both Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima have never held a role in a feature film before. "The Wolverine" is the first full-length film either of them have been in. I'd say that if you go from nothing to costarring with Hugh Jackman, you can go ahead and say you've made it. Though I don't have the courage to say that no one else could have played their characters, I will say that they did a great job drawing you into the action. But then you had the character villainess Viper (originally written for Jessica Beil), played by Svetlana Khodchenkova, who was so over-the-top and unbelievable that I was half expecting a giant wooden hook to swoop in and drag her off the set. Which would have received nothing less than vigorous applause from....anyone with a brain.
At first I was not overly impressed with this installment of Wolverine. It's more character building, and I felt that his character was already well established and didn't require any more backstory. I was disappointed because the other X-Men movies showed much more action, and far less Jackman being sad. However, after thinking on it for a few days, I actually like the choices they made with this movie. It's more a film, and less of a flick (if that makes sense). Anyone can make an action movie, but it takes real talent to be able to blend it seamlessly with a good drama. Mangold does it nicely, and earned huge marks in my book. The settings are beautiful, and the ladies will coo at the sight of Jackman's aforementioned dancing pectorals (which are showcased far too much in my opinion). We get it Hugh. You're a god and we're puny wanna-be-buff fatsos, who will spend the following week working out for a solid 3 1/2 minutes a day to impress our ladies, but will fail miserably and drown our sorrows in discount light beer.
The dialogue was incredibly well-written. Kudos to those blokes. You won't be disconnected from the script for a moment. They threw in a World War II reference to set up the film, which I thought was odd at first, but fell in line really well in the totality of the film. My complaints are very few and far between, so there's not much bad I can say about this one.
Overall, I give this one a 4 out of 5. The writing, filming, character building, pec dancing were superb. Even the Gaffers and the Best Boy gave stellar performances. I recommend it anyone who loves comic book movies on any level.
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