Countdown to X-Men:
Days of Future Past, Part 6…
If X-Men: First
Class was a course-correction of sorts for the series after the disastrous X3, then we can certainly view The Wolverine as absolving the previous Wolverine film’s many sins. First and
foremost, the film operates on a less-grandiose scale, with a stripped-down
narrative (and cast, thank God) and a much greater focus of who the main
character is and what the whole film is all about. Unlike the previous installment,
The Wolverine takes place in the
present-day, picking up a few years after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. Logan is bereaved after killing his
lady-love Jean Grey, and now spends his days living in the woods and fighting
off asshole rednecks who poison their arrows and try to kill grizzly bears. A
Japanese mutant by the name of Yukio appears to take Logan back to Tokyo on
behalf of her benefactor Yashida, a soldier Logan saved while being held as a
POW during the bombing of Nagasaki. Yashida is dying, and offers Logan a chance
to swap his mutant abilities for a normal aging process through some scientific
mumbo-jumbo, thus giving Logan the “gift” of a normal life in payment for him
saving his life all those years ago. Of course, things are not quite that
simple, as before long ninja, Yakuza and Yashida’s grand-daughter Mariko get
involved in the proceedings.
From
its opening moments, The Wolverine systematically
does what Origins tried to do, only
better. Echoing that movie’s credit sequence which traced Wolverine’s journey
as a soldier throughout various wars through history (while also echoing the
very first X-Men), here we open in a
very-well done scene that recreates the panic and horror in Nagasaki the day the
second atom-bomb dropped and decimated the town. It’s a gripping opening, and
one that nicely sets the tone for the subsequent movie, which takes its main
source of inspiration from the Wolverine
miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. Darren Aronofsky was originally
set to direct, and while the resulting film from replacement director James
Mangold isn’t nearly as idiosyncratic as one would expect from the maker of Black Swan and The Fountain, the film still has a certain degree of authenticity
often lacking in these big-budget superhero films. First of all, it’s
incredibly low-key: there’s no citywide destruction or overblown villains
(well, at least until the very end… but we’ll get to that), and all the action
scenes feel more personal as a result. Logan isn’t fighting for the fate of the
world or his city, but rather his own refreshingly mortal soul. I may be
overreacting to the nice change-of-pace, but seeing a superhero movie play out
so well on a smaller scale is quite rewarding, and something I wish other
studios would put into practice for their own films.
The
cast is also quite refreshingly made up almost entirely of Asian performers -
aside from the title role, of course, of which Hugh Jackman still owns
completely and tonally. If in the previous films he looked bored or tired, he
more than makes up for it here. Of course, this is the first film since X2 to really test his mettle in the role,
and honestly the first one to truly dive into the character of Logan with such
depth and precision. By this point, the series has thankfully done away with
the “man of mystery”/amnesia thing, and settled the character into a sort of
lost soul trying to find his purpose again in the world - a purpose he finds in
Japan with the lovely Mariko, played very nicely by first-time actress Tao
Okamoto, who manages to be a strong character who isn’t “empowered” in the
sense of doing boy things like fighting, but instead plays the lead female role
as - who’da thunk it - feminine,
without sacrificing one bit of strength to the male lead in the process. Quite
an impressive feat, considering the role and the way such roles often play out
in stories like this.
Rila
Fukushima gets the more traditional, badass woman warrior type role, but again,
the actress succeeds primarily through playing a character, and not a type.
Fukushima’s Yukio is a smaller part, in the grand scheme of things, but the way
the actress and filmmakers present the character, she very nearly steals the
movie with each successive scene. And on the villain side… well, if you’ve got
Hiroyuki Sanada in your movie, then the ball is yours to drop when it comes to
delivering, as the veteran Japanese star never brings anything less than
perfection to any movie lucky enough to have him. Fortunately, his role here as
Yashida’s traitorous son Shingen gives the actor plenty to do, although it is a
bit disappointing when he drops out of the film with nearly thirty minutes left
to go.
And
that’s where we get to the only real flaw of the film: a slightly goofy
conclusion that sees the Wolverine take on a gigantic robo-samurai. Now,
ordinarily, I would be cheering on the inclusion of gigantic robo-samurai to just about any movie, but
coming at the tail end of one that has thus far been so grounded and scaled-back,
it feels a bit disharmonious. The action preceding that is largely top-notch - The Wolverine is essentially a
crime/martial arts movie, and has set-pieces befitting of the genre, with a lot of
practical and stunt-heavy choreography, so when the “Silver Samurai” shows up
at the end and everything gets pixilated, it can’t help but let the air out of
the momentum the film has managed to build thus far. But even more than that,
the decision to have the elder Yashida turn out to be the big bad of the movie feels
a bit wrong-headed, but I suppose it makes about as much sense as the whole “stealing
powers” subplot does, ultimately (which is to say, "not much").
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