The Wolverine

Directed by James Mangold. Written by Mark Bomback, Scott Frank. Starring Hugh Jackman (Logan), Tao Okamoto (Mariko), Rila Fukushima (Yukio).

Bottomline: One phrase: giant samurai ninja robot.

2/4

I was sitting on a flight from San Francisco to Pittsburgh and one of the in-flight shows was Inside the Actors Studio with an interview with Hugh Jackman. He explained how he was excited about the opportunity to portray Logan, or Wolverine, in the then upcoming movie The Wolverine. It kinda made me want to see the movie even though I thought it would be bad. I was correct but what do-ya-expect from a comic book movie, right?

As a quick side note, I think it might be interesting to make a compilation of prequels that add or remove “The” to the franchise. The Wolverine and Fast and Furious are two that come to mind. The Smurfs is a reboot of Smurfs. Evil Dead is a remake of The Evil Dead.

Another side note, if you aren’t familiar with X-Men or Wolverine, he is a mutant who has the ability to quickly heal. At some point, some evil scientists replaced his skeleton with an indestructible metal so Logan (aka Wolverine) is essentially immortal. How exactly is a fight supposed to be suspenseful? In the one movie, for example, he survives a handgun shot to the forehead. Nevertheless, as my fiancée points out, we see in the trailer that “he isn’t healing like before”. They do take his immortality away from him for part of the film. This is more reasonable than a character like Superman; the only way to hurt him physically is to get a piece of his planet from across the galaxy. It may just come down to my fear that if I was in the X-Men world, I would either be a non-mutant or have a lame power. Similarly, I would totally be a Muggle if I lived in a Harry Potter world. Anyway, back to the movie.

It seems like any Wolverine introduction has Logan wandering in the woods, being all mopey and mysterious until invariably he gets into a bar fight and flees after nearly killing everyone. The Wolverine is no different except that, this time a martial arts expert, red haired Japanese punk named Yukio (Fukushima) rescues him. She explains that a man named Yashida (Yamanouchi) is dying and wants to say goodbye. Through a series of redundant flashbacks, we learn how Logan and the man met.  Long story short, Logan saved him from the atomic blast in Nagasaki. Yashida went on to found a massive electronics company of the same name. Now, Yashida wants Logan’s healing abilities and P.S. the Yakuza is trying to kill Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko (Okamoto). Logan fights waves of Yakuza (and then ninjas) who are trying to kidnap Mariko, who is arranged to be married but falls in love with Logan (surprise surprise) even though she was in love with the leader of the ninja clan (the same ninja clan trying to kidnap her). Whew, let me catch my breath. The Wolverine made me realize something about film. A great movie shows you, a bad movie tells you and a really bad movie tells you again; The Wolverine has so much dialog about things I do not care about.

The action in this movie is expectable for a PG-13 movie. Did you know that a PG-13 movie can say the f-word once? Movies like The Wolverine will position that one usage for maximum ‘awesomeness’ too and it is something of a game of mine to anticipate when it will come up. I won’t spoil the fun for you (if you wind up seeing this movie). It bothers me that PG-13 movies can say the f dash dash dash word once and still be considered PG-13. Do we want to reserve certain words to only be used in certain tough guy situations? If that line where Wolverine says “F you” is made out to be special and cool, it just gives profanity a cult appeal (in the minds of the young male target audience). Now that we are on the subject of offensive material, let’s talk about women.

Logan, from what I recall, was in love with another mutant Jean Grey (Janssen). At the end of X-Men 2, Grey turned into something of a bomb. Logan has to kill her to save everyone else. In his guilt, he dreams of the situation that the two were sleeping together and he was having a nightmare. In his sleep, he extended his claws and accidentally stabbed her. She died and he feels bad. I’d like to know that we know her less as Jean Grey and more as breasts. Whenever she appears on-screen, the frame is divided half to her head and half to her cleavage. In any case, he dreams about her because he loves her and she loves him. But, of course, it doesn’t stop him from sleeping with the docile Mariko. Jean Grey is now the perfect woman: she loves Logan and will wait for him, alone, for eternity. Meanwhile, because he is still alive, Logan can go adventuring and sleeping around until he decides he wants to settle down. With regard to Mariko, the movie ends with her asking, “Can I ever expect you to come and visit” to which Logan grunts, says, “I am a soldier,” turns and gets on his plane. Here we have another woman loving Logan who must now wait for him. Will she ever move on and find another significant other? Doubtful.

Now we do have the punky-alternative Japanese woman, Yukio, accompanying him on the plane. She says, “I am your bodyguard.” Throughout the movie Yukio has been staring at him wantonly (and this scene is no different) but she will never have him because Logan doesn’t want her. The only reason she is on the plane is that she wants him but can’t have him. If she did have him, then she would have to wait somewhere.

The icing on the cake is the female villain mutant: Viper. She explains to Logan that she is immune to all poisons and venoms...including that of men. “Die mutant, bitch!” Logan replies. This is the only female mutant villain, mind you, and what makes her totally evil is that she cannot be seduced by men. She deserves to hang for that. She gets even worse as she sheds her skin (and her blonde hair) making her this androgynous beast and not the attractive androgynous kind but that asexual kind.

Logan’s relationship with women is more about the thrill of the hunt, Jean and Mariko are set aside because, having been granted Logan’s essence, they are no longer objects of attraction. It’s the thrill of the hunt, if you will.

Ok, ok, ok. I know what you might be saying, what do you expect from a movie like this? It is a comic book action movie. How many X-men movies featuring Wolverine have there been anyway? The action in this movie is good and comic-booky featuring a fight seen on top of a bullet train.

The cinematography wasn’t my favorite; the camera was ‘in the action’ so it was really shaky. Shaky camera has its time and place but with a superhero movie, it feels like they are just trying to hide poor fights scenes instead of make a realistic, gritty vibe. Batman Begins made me feel this way too.

Overall, The Wolverine isn’t any earth shattering experience but a regular comic book movie: action and sexism. I didn’t really expect much and didn’t really get much. While I wasn’t disappointed per se, I wouldn’t recommend The Wolverine unless you are a solid fan in which case you’ve probably watched it.