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Wolverine


xccj

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I saw the movie this weekend, and I really enjoyed it.

 

To start this out, let me say that I’m a big X-Men fan. Well, as far as the television series are concerned, since I’m not quite as into comic books. But the previous movies have been… okay at best. Not super impressed with them compared to the Avengers and such.

 

But honestly, I don’t like Wolverine. In general, his character is just too gruff or whatever; he’s always angry and violent and doesn’t seem like the most likeable protagonist. I don’t dislike him per say, but he’s not my favorite X-Men. (It’s kinda like how I don’t like the hothead Tahu compared to any of the other Toa Mata.) This is just personal preferences, of course.

 

But, if I limit myself to Logan-based stories, I have to say that my favorite arcs with him are the ones set in Japan. (And not to mention that the Wolverine Anime, canon or not, was REALLY good.) So when I heard there was a new Wolverine movie coming out and that it was set in Japan, it caught my interest. (And then I just randomly happened to notice that it was opening this weekend, so I was like kay let’s try for a matinee.)

 

So, um, spoilers??

 

 

I’d probably say this is my favorite of the X-Men movies so far. Logan has some nice characterization, and it felt that the character did change by the end of the movie, so props there? I read somewhere that the director was trying to take it in a new direction by making him mortal… which was interesting, but that part didn’t seem too important. Sure, he freaked out a bit more from the pain and wounds and stuff... but he got shot like a dozen times in that state and just kept walking through it. I mean, he was shot, then he just went through fight scene after fight scene (the train bit was good, I always appreciate battles on trains, and the bullet train aspect really added to it.) And okay, he does eventually pass out, but that was like a day and 8 gunshot wounds later. If he was really being “mortal” then he would’ve been knocked down after two or three, tops. Also, the grandfather was referred to as the better person, but then he totally ended up being the big baddie. Yeah, I was expecting that to happen, but it seems kind of like a take-back in the end. “Oh, you thought he was a good person and you keep going on about it, but really he was fooling you all and just wanted to be immortal.” I guess it could be explained away, but I still felt that it was stretching credibility.

 

Still, that bit aside, the movie had a nice flow to it. The baddies got a little confusing for a while, with just “who’s on who’s side, and who just betrayed who else?” It was nice that a majority of the characters were actually Japanese, with only like two white folks (Logan and snake-girl) in the limelight. (Granted, they were the main protagonist and antagonist, really.) (Also, it probably helps that I’ve been watching a lot of anime recently.) They could’ve used a few more mutants… there were only three, right? But the martial arts and sword fights were great.

 

(And I didn’t bother to remember all their names because A: Japanese and B: I don’t have a good memory for names except for the ones I already know, like Logan.)

 

And in the end, Logan and the two gals survived. Everybody else important died (well, almost.) That does beat the anime, where literally every character but Logan chokes it. (Um, spoiler?) Honestly, I wasn’t expecting both of the female leads to survive...

 

Oh, and I guess it fits into the continuity of the movies, with his bone-like claws from his origin story and the whole bit with Jean that apparently happened in the last X-Men movie. (Oh, and something about bald guys in the final scene; I wonder if that has any relevance? :P )

 

 

Um... so that was a bit of rambling. Overall, I liked this movie for the action and characters (and appreciated the Japanese themes that were included with both) and the story was good enough for a comic-book movie. So now I’m rooting for Wolverine? Eh, guess so.

 

:music:

 

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You summed up my thoughts basically spot-on.

The mutants felt awkwardly strung in to give it a tighter connection to the rest of the X-Men universe; Viper in particular was really only there to act semi-menacing and to put in the mortality suspense-building device, and then it didn't even last long enough to have any impact on plot-relevant events.

 

The good guys and bad guys were completely bland without explaining anyone's motivation or allegiance until the very end, and I think the context of even the best fight scenes really suffered because we didn't know/weren't given a reason to care about why it was happening or who it was happening to.

 

I basically predicted the grandfather's betrayal from the trailers, and the fact that what's-her-name didn't see it coming either meant that she lured Logan to Japan to steal the immortality for herself or the grandfather was behind it the entire time, and the latter seemed more likely.

 

I can't remember a lot of what happened to the secondary characters between Logan as a wilderness man and the fight with the Silver Samurai, and unfortunately I don't think any of it mattered in the end.

 

It seemed like most people's consensus was "Yeah, it was okay, but the end really made up for it." Like, the entire movie was an excuse to tease that post-credits Sentinel reveal? That's really what it amounted to for me.

 

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Eh, I wouldn't be that harsh about it... just because some of the characters were a little off doesn't mean they were worthless. And while it wasn't always clear WHY the baddies wanted to kill / capture the girl, it was pretty obvious WHAT they were trying to do.

 

And the Mortality thing could've been cool except it hardly changed him. A "How It Should've Ended" should just have Logan getting shot twice and then dropping like a fly. But I like how he went from "I have nothing worth living for" to "maybe there's still stuff worth fighting for."

 

 

:music:

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