Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Wolverine


RATING: A-

This film may be about Wolverine, but at the same time, it's just a bridge-filler for him during the time between The Last Stand and Days of Future Past. What happened to the rest of the X-Men during that time apparently doesn't matter, but we need to know his story, so that we can finish connecting the dots to...*sigh*...Days of Future Past. 

That being said, people who are worried about this being the mess that X-Men Origins was, can rest easy, because this is a very different and better film. 

In an odd twist, this one takes place mostly in Japan. Before it goes there, we see that Wolverine has become a loner (little surprise after the events of Last Stand), and is essentially trying to live out his unending life in peace. But when he ends up paying a visit to Japan to pay final respects to an old acquaintance, trouble comes right back to him. Because this super-old guy whom he saved years ago from nuclear holocaust is offering to pay him back by ending his immortality. 

Logan passes up the deal (after all, technically, if he actually *wanted* to end his immortality, he could've just taken the mutant cure from the Last Stand), but later ends up with his powers somewhat suppressed after a nighttime visit from a dangerous individual mutant. Now vulnerable for the first time (to a degree), he has to deal with... Japanese conflicts, and samurai. More specifically, the Silver Samurai. 

This is definitely one of the better films in the X-Men series. The action sequences are quite exhilarating--there's one fight on a bullet train, and then the fight with the Silver Samurai is also quite awesome. Things are also a bit weird at times. 

(Spoilers follow.)

However, there are a couple of massive plotholes--that trace across multiple X-Men films, but can be traced directly back to this one. First off, Wolverine loses his metal claws in this film and gets his bone ones back--but in Days of Future Past, he unexplainably has the metal claws back. And in a mid-credits scene, Professor X makes his first official appearance since the Last Stand. With no explanation as to how or why he's back from the dead. And don't say that what Jean did was undone when she died, because then Cyclops would have come back from the dead as well. 

(End of spoilers.)

Despite these plotholes, The Wolverine is still an extremely enjoyable action/adventure film with a twist that can't be found in many other wide-release action films. It's definitely worth picking up, especially if you were jaded (like most were) by Wolverine's first stand-alone film. It may be admittedly part of the leading up to the unnecessary rewriting of the canon in Days of Future Past, but this film tries its hardest to ignore that, and give it credit for that.

No comments:

Post a Comment