The summer blockbuster season–starting earlier than ever I believe–”officially” begins (despite the better than usual spring box office offerings including Monsters Vs. Aliens and Fast and Furious) with Hugh Jackman’s return to his star-making title character. Sort of a prequel to the X-Men movies, as the new franchise name implies (with a Magneto installment a possibility, the first among Marvel mutants gets his backstory served up with a spandex and leather jumpsuit-free narrative.
We knew the feral mutant with the rapid-healing powers was of indeterminate age, a very long life being a side benefit of said recuperative abilities–now we know he was born around 1835, and, as the trailers indicated, had seen action in American wars up through the 20th century. Logan is not the savage near animal we knew from earlier movies, he’s at this point a really good brawler who’s more in control of himself than his half-brother Victor, who will later become Sabretooth, who’s bigger and with really nasty fingernails. The two find themselves recruits of a special ops team of mutants that becomes too vicious for Logan, and his departure from the team is the precipitating incident of the plot. The movie plays to star Jackman’s leading man strengths and good looks and for a while, I wondered what he meant when he speaks Wolverine’s signature line: “I’m the best I am at what I do, and what I do isn’t very nice, ” I wasn’t sure what he meant. Up to that point, we hadn’t seen Logan demonstrate his skills, so focused on the other team members was the action. In fact, we never see Logan really perform as a special agent per se. It isn’t until he begins his personal vendetta that hints of the animal nature that wants to claws its way to the top are revealed.
Along the way we see various characters from the long history of Marvel’s merry and mean mutants, most of whom we haven’t met before and a treat for X-fans ready to nudge the person next to them with the joy of recognition. No, Wolverine isn’t in the same league as The Dark Knight, or as much fun as Iron Man, but, if you like the character and that kind of comic book action, I think you won’t be sorry you saw it–I wasn’t.
I’m disappointed! I wasn’t expecting much and that’s a good thing. Brian Singer did such a great job with the first two X-Men… it’s sad because the Wolverine Origins comic is sweet. My favorite line was, “He’s indestructible!” and then moments later, “He’s a threat, we must kill him using these antimanian bullets!” So he is destructable… Hmmm.
Comment by Darren — May 13, 2009 @ 8:02 pm |
Darren -
Thanks for your comment. I measured my enjoyment of Wolverine against the pain I felt after watching X3 and feeling mauled by some pointless–except for shock value–deaths and bad writing. I didn’t feel that way after Wolverine, but I also admit it didn’t feel like a necessary film–there was no “aha, so that’s why yada yada” moments that filled in some blanks. And Wolvey never went into a berserker rage, especially after bursting out of the adamantium process–as we’d been led to believe happens from the earlier films. In fact, this Wolverine was altogether a nicer mutant than we’d seen before. If, as appears, they’re planning another one, set in Japan, they seriously need to put some savagery in Logan or we won’t feel the conflict he is supposed to be feeling. And yes, adamantium bullets shouldn’t necessarily penetrate adamantium covered bones–dent them, maybe but not penetrate.
-Alex
Comment by Alex — May 13, 2009 @ 10:13 pm |