Sometimes performances are so earnest that you really want to love a movie but when the story is as predictable and weak as The Wolverine, no amount of heart and witty remarks can save a generic film from being bland, and that's the case with this film.
The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's seventh outing as the iconic Wolverine based on the comic books X-Men, sees him going to Japan as he mourns Jean Grey to go dancing with ninjas a la Kevin Costner in 'Dances with Wolves'. Unfortunately this film is not as epic nor as emotionally rewarding as Costner's film.
Clearly James Mangold (the director) and the producer-cum-star Jackman wanted The Wolverine to tie into the previous X-Men movies - the ones before X-Men: First Class. So this movie would act as a sequel to X-Men: Last Stand (which was a horrid film) and also a kinda-of-a-sequel to last year's X-Men: First Class, in which Hugh Jackman had a funny cameo role. Which is a good and a bad thing.
Marvel is creating its universe, DC now with Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie aka Man of Steel 2 is also setting up its universe for all the other DC characters. So franchises are trying to create worlds to have the characters populate and have films that branch out and create other movies that are independent of each other but still talk to each other. So X-Men is carving its own universe within the Marvel one.
This is a good thing for comic book and superhero fans. It's nice to join the dots and follow characters but it's bad in the sense that, like X-Men: Last Stand, these movies can fall flat 'cause it's not about pushing a strong theme or a great story that's motivating the expansions. Rather the expansions of universes seems to be driven by profit margins rather than good stories.
How many more tickets can we sell by exploiting certain characters and throwing in something that resembles a story? The first two X-Men movies were great 'cause they had good stories and a theme that kept building from the one movie to the next - they spoke to our own world treatment of outsiders or the "other". With the mutant scare being synonymous with hatred based on race or gender in our world, each movie became more complex and the stories better.
The Wolverine is supposed to be a more gritty, toned down take on the character - a desperate act by the studios to try to erase the awful X-Men Origin Wolverine movie that came out before this one.
Yet the plot is as thin as paper, the characters motivations and actions are as baffling as in X-Men: Last Stand - just with fewer mutants on show. The themes in this movie are not properly drawn out and become very messy halfway through the movie. Well, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie, which is kinda sad.
What's even sadder is, if you are older than 12 years, within the first 20 minutes you would have figured out the entire movie - where it's headed, who the bad guy is and what the twist is going to be. This movie is that generic and bland . I wonder if no-one at the studio actually looked at this script and was like "Hey guys, isn't this movie too predictable?", "But why is this happening?" or "Why is this dude doing this?"
The mind boggles.
The film offers nothing new to add to the myth or character of Wolverine. From the first X-Men movie to the last time we saw Wolverine in X-Men: First Class.
The man's character arc has always been the same: the man on the outside, trying to act tough but a big softie inside with a chip on his shoulder. This movie gives us the same thing. Unfortunately it's riddled with plot holes and a story that does not stand up to logic once you start think about it. Oh yes, the word Hollywood hates: "think" ... but I digress.
Hugh Jackman is Wolverine - we can buy into that, he's bulked up and has the right attitude and even throws in "bubba" like the 90's cartoon series used to. The film has some witty remarks and lines but the premise of the movie, the story and even eventual climax is a farce.
The only interesting thing in this movie is actually in the post credit, where the guys hint at the sequel to X-Men: First Class, which has been named X-Men: Days of Futures Past.
If you've seen the 90's cartoon series, this will brighten up your mood, if you are a die hard comic book reader, you will also be happy by what the post credit sequence hints at. Yet, I hate to say it, this movie is dull and honestly, the world can do without another Wolverine stand alone movie.
The Wolverine is as interesting as watching paint dry - the whole movie could have happened in 20 minutes that's how thin the plot is and so many things don't make sense in the movie but let's talk about that once you've seen it. If you're smart you'll wait for the DVD - feel free to disagree but this is by far the worst superhero movie of this year.