Life is a gift...
Immortality a Curse
As promised after reviewing the horrible "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" I said we would go after the far more well received "The Wolverine". I wasn't lucky enough to have seen this film in theaters back when it released last July, so this is my first time viewing the film. So this is first impressions as well as a full review folks. I've spent the last 12 or so hours refreshing myself on the X-Men films and the continuity (or lack there of) of the films. So this should be a fun ride, many times first impressions can tend to give a film a stronger rating than upon further review, so I'll have my critical stinky eye out when viewing this film as to not get caught up in the newness of it all. It would appear the Wolverine somehow went from "Origins" to Japan jumping from a prequel to a direct sequel to X-Men 3. From what I saw from the trailer, it would appear that our favorite claw wielding indestructible hero wants out. He no longer wants his "curse" and wishes to be free from it. Now I realize this film was far more well received than the Origins story, but this seemingly just makes the already confusing story of the X-Men even more confusing. But lets give it a shot before I make final judgment, lets head to Japan where we will find The Wolverine! So...Here... WE...GO!
The film begins somewhere in there where Wolverine and Victor were fighting in war to war in Wolverine Origins, this is in Japan somewhere during World War 2, (minus Victor) where Wolverine appears to be a prisoner of war kept in a hole. The bombs are about to be dropped on Nagasaki as the Japanese are running for cover from an atom bomb that will clearly destroy everything in its path. One of the guards tries to save Wolverine but Logan obviously knows that he is safer in the hole than he is running. The Soldier is saved by Wolverine and his healing powers, (this will become important later on). Shortly there after we find out it was a nightmare from Logan's past. As he we wakes up next to the deceased Jean Grey. Only to find that is having another nightmare of the day he had to stab the woman he loved, to save her from the Phoenix, (X-Men 3). He wakes up once more, looking rather bumbish with long hair a long scraggly beard. We find out that we are years since the events of X-Men 3 and Logan has since gone off on his own. He took the death of Jean Grey pretty hard...
As he makes his way into town he seemingly makes friends with a grizzly bear, and he is being followed as well. A group of reckless hunters shoot Wolverine's friendly grizzly with a poison dart, something that doesn't find at all too funny. He puts the bear out of its misery rather than have it sit and suffer a long and painful death... It's an animal thing... It's not long before Wolverine finds our friendly hunters with the poison darts, and makes an example out of him. He doesn't care too much, for hunters that dont have the heart to track the animal and put it out of it's misery rather than let it die in pain. Before he kills the men, he is stopped by the woman tracking him ironically enough. She takes a distinct interest in our claw wielding friend and it's not long before we find out why.
She says she has been trying to track him down for over a year, why? Because our friend who Wolverine saved back during WW2, and he wants to say his goodbye in person. Which means he is going to Japan... which is how and why our Wolverine ends up in Japan. Makes sense enough, his world has become unmanageable since the death of Jean Grey in Xmen 3. Just because it's a funny throw back, their trip to Japan is an 18 hour flight, and as well know Wolverine hate's flying. His mysterious stranger is a mutant herself, with the ability to see the future, although... that doesn't mean the future can't change. They decide that Wolverine needs a bath and a shave before meeting his old friend, which well... just makes him look like the scruffy Wolverine that we all remember with the whacky hair and the scraggly beard... Nice job folks... He's gone from looking like a bum... to a slightly less dirty bum. It's just his look...
Our old friend from Nagasaki knows a way for Logan to transfer his mutant gene from one person to the next. He want's Wolverine to give him his regenerative abilities, which is something of a gift and a burden for Wolverine. He can't seem to decide whether or not he want's a warriors death, or to keep his eternity of life. With the death of Jean Grey he seems to have lost his purpose in life so the opportunity to allow his death to eventually come seems like a gift, but he seems unsure of what to do. He decides he doesnt want to give his gift to the man, with the words "You don't want what I've got". Just throwing this out there, but we all know that Wolverine like like over a thousand years old... (Probably) His mutant gene has him looking pretty good for his age. It's not long before he's dreaming of Jean yet again, but only... it's not Jean. There is someone in reality who has suppressed his ability to heal for the time being. Now I may have let the cat out of the bag just there, but we dont find out that it's temporary till later, but we find out quick that Wolverine isn't healing anymore. We'll explain why when that time comes.
There is an ensuing battle with the Yakusa, where Wolverine fails to heal from his wounds, taking a shotgun a pointblank range to the chest, but does a great job of continuing to battle off the bad guys, even if he is about 15 (or so) years removed from being one of the X-Men soldiers. He himself is puzzled as to why he is not healing, and it takes him and the audience quite some time before he finds out why. But its a fun ride finding out just what exactly is going on. How he survives at all is somewhat of an X-Men puzzle never explained because with his powers to heal suppressed the wound to his chest should have killed him. Not to mention his hands are never seen bloody from the natural inside and out from his claws. He should not be healing from the cuts that his claws leave, but we will ignore that as well... because well...X-Men should sum that up enough for you. After watching and refreshing myself on the whole series there are a number of continuity errors and unexplained things that make no sense at all. So when these things happen I will just explain them by using the X-planaton ... "Cuz X-Men". The battle with the Yakusa is a fun little run through Tokyo, Wolverine seems unfazed by his pretty nasty wounds while in battle but once he's wondering around he notices them quite a bit... Cuz X-Men... He's not healing, but he's not dead... Cuz X-Men...
Now I realize this is an American film based in Japan, and I know that we dont want to read Japanese subtitles the whole film, but why it moves back and forth between English and Japanese is a tad peculiar, as if the Japanese speak to one and other in English and Japanese and go back and forth between the two frequently. Either they are going to speak Japanese or they are going to speak English, especially to one and other. I and buy a Japanese person speaking English to Wolverine since he doesn't speak Japanese, but there is no reason for Japanese people to switch going back and forth between English and Japanese to one and other. Now that that's out of the way, there is a pretty bad ass scene going on atop a bullet train, and yet again, his wounds have yet to heal and when in battle dont seem to bother him in the least. Not to mention he only seams to be losing steam when he's not in battle. Logic would say he would since he is not dead, he would gradually be losing strength as the film goes on. His wounds don't heal, yet they only seem to bother him from time to time, this is a tad of a continuity error... Cuz X-Men...Wolverine eventually faints from his wounds... It's about time... and is bandaged up by a veterinarian, patched up by several... bullet wounds... that didn't kill him... Cuz X-Men... So they patch him up, and life goes on, Wolverine is all better just like he was when the bullets are inside of him... Cuz X-Men...
So Wolverine is taking the bus... only reason I bring this up... because it really doesn't matter at all.... Is because I TOO take the bus everywhere! So It's like me and Wolverine are like BROTHERS and junk! Extra half! Star cuz both me and Wolverine take the bus! ...Moving on...
So back to the suppression of Wolverine's power to heal, Wolverine uses a full body scan to see that there has been a little parasite leaching off his heart, literally on his heart. This was how the crazy lady suppressed his powers, during a tiny little battle. He knows that he needs his powers to save his lady friend, the daughter of his WW2 friend, (Things are getting a tad confusing) He is warned by his psychic friend that he would die with his own heart in his hand, but Wolverine slices open his own belly anyway and reaches up and pulls the parasite from his heart... before we even get into the possibilities of this considering is other vial organs... Cuz X-Men... That clear it up enough? Anyway, he manages to pull the parasite off his heart, and he flat-lines for a little bit, and but all of us know that Wolverine isn't dead, his ability to heal brings him back to life. And BOOM! It's Wolverine time Bitches! Wolverine goes all Wolverine on everyone and kicks some serious ass. Best moment sword goes all the way through him, he with the guy saying "What kinda monster are you?" Wolverine pulls the sword out... "The Wolverine" Just bad assitude all over it.
We are headed for the home stretch now, "The Viper" as she is so affectionately called is the woman who places parasites inside of people, as well her breath making people's skin boil... just the kinda girl you would like to take home to mom. She introduces us to this giant mammoth of a monster sameri made out of animantium. Now... the problem with this is the continuity through the films being that Animantium is one of the hardest elements on earth to get your hands on. Aaaand you have to keep it in a boiling state otherwise it hardens... (That's X-Men 2 for those of you counting continuity errors at home.) So the they build this giant robot out of animantium because ...Cuz X-Men... to defeat Wolverine. In his attempt to go save... I forget which girl... he is shot with about a fourteen dozen arrows that put him down, and when he wakes up he is locked in a chair... I'm guessing also made out of animantium? Cuz everything is made out of animantium these days don't you know, especially in Japan. The Viper, taunts Wolverine until the claws come out, which is what she wanted. The machine comes out and locks the claws so they stay out. The idea here is chop off Wolverine's claws... so... and this will make all the sense in the world. So they can rob Wolverine of his regenerative abilities by sucking it out of him... through his broken animantium claws... Hmmmm... Cuz X-Men...
Wolverine manages to escape the chair with the help of... one of the Japanese girls, now I'm not saying this because they all look alike or whatever. I'm saying this because they both seem to have the same relationship with Wolverine and I can hardly tell the difference between the two characters, other than one has pink hair and she has the mutant ability to see the future, and one is a normal girl. Anyway, the Viper get shot by the same man who took down Wolverine...Cuz X-Men... and then she does something very cool, she sheds her skin like a snake... cuz... Viper HELLO! Tis Awesome. Wolverine has a battle with the giant Sameri, the Sameri has the ability to heat up his animantium to a red hot point hot enough to cut other animantium. This of course breaks the continuity of X-Men 2 where if you heat up animantium it boils and if its not heated it becomes the strongest mettle on the planet. His sword heats up to a point where it is red hot and by all accounts should melt... but it doesnt... Cuz X-Men... Getting back to the battle...
The pink haired girl gets into a battle with the Viper, Wolverine is fighting the giant sameri with one set of claws and a sword. Wolverine gets his ass kicked cuz his beast is three times the size of him, he's about to lose his other set of claws when the man who was responsible for capturing Wolverine to begin with... now saves Wolverine... Because he had a sudden change of hear? Or Cuz X-Men... I havent decided yet. Wolverine picks up one of the sword's of the giant animantium sameri and tries to get it to heat up, how does it heat up you might ask? Does it heat up because it is connected to the giant sameri who has this ability? Nope, Wolverine heats it up, cuz Japanese swords require two hands... yup... Wolverine cuts the head off the sameri and then we find out that the giant sameri is actually Wolverine's friend from WW2 who want's Wolverine's powers to live. So the giant Sameri is sort of like a huge Iron Man suit. Now this is where things get fun, the girl with the pink hair kills the Viper in a somewhat anticlimactic way, after they had just started fighting only a few moments ago. Wolverine gets his second set of claws chopped off and now they are drilling into the holes where his claws used to be. Not into his skin but inside the animantium skeleton. Somehow this is stealing Wolverine's powers and giving them to WW2 man. How? Cuz X-Men. Wolverine is on the brink of death when the dark haired girl takes one of Wolverine's broken claws and stabs him in the head with it, this releases Wolverine who's power magic power that was taken from him, is now restored, goes up and rips the animantium suit up, yup just tears it apart. Then... Cuz X-Men...his Bone claws that we were first introduced to in Wolverine Origins are back. See now this is something that puzzles me even for ... Cuz X-Men... the animantium was bonded with his skeleton, how his bones would grow back where his cut off claws still were... makes no sense at all to me. Anyway, Wolverine wins, says goodbye to Jean in a dream sequence and all is right with the world.
Wolverine says that he's a soldier and he's been hiding too long, implying he's headed back to the X-Men, which we know he is with the upcoming X-Men film "Days of Future's Past" coming up. Midway through the credits we get a scene leading into the previously mentioned film, where we see Magnito who now has fully regained his powers since X-Men 3 when he was removed of them... Cuz X-Men, and everyone is frozen in time because Professor X shows up cuz he's no longer dead... Cuz X-Men. It's a cool little scene, I just wish that the X-Men films didn't have so many continuity erros. HOPEFULLY this will all be explained away in the upcoming film but given the X-Men's track record on explaining things, I wouldnt count on it... Cuz X-Men...
"Cuz X-Men" Explanations: 18
Final Thoughts:
After watching all the X-Men films I feel its too easy to dock points off them because of "Cuz X-Men" explanations. All the films, ALL of them are riddled with questions and continuity errors and just plain things that don't make sense. I've come to a point where after watching ever X-Men film in the last two days from "First Class" all the way to "The Wolverine" that you have to overlook some of the things that you would normally dock a film for in story and continuity because the X-Men films are riddled with them from start to finish. From an action standpoint, I feel like "The Wolverine" is the best out of the whole series, as far as action "Wolverine Origins" comes close on an action scale. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of films that go to Japan and deal with all the Sameri warrior stuff, but as far as those go this one was a success. I came out of the movie enjoying what I saw even though there was a lot of things that just didnt make sense. At least this time it was a sequel instead of a prequel where the plot lines are supposed to set up for the other films and they dont. Most of the "Cuz X-Men" moments were just things that happened and you really wouldnt notice until after you've seen the film, most of them anyway. It's a little like Dark Knight Rises in that sense, The Wolverine is not the best film in the series, but it is a good, fun film. The story is a little hard to follow, but all we really care about is The Wolverine right? Thats right and because of that I am awarding The Wolverine...
Final Score
4 outa 5
(Woulda probably been a 3.5 but hey, Wolverine rides the bus,
just like me. So he gets an extra half star.)
No comments:
Post a Comment