The Wolverine: Meh
Don't get me wrong. I like Wolverine. I think he's one of the most complex and interesting characters in all comic-dom. He's got issues that can't be easily rectified. A lot of them he doesn't even want to rectify. He's happier hanging out in the woods than in civilization and who can blame him? Civilization has sold him out in every conceivable way.
So when the film-makers drag him, willy-nilly, from his woodland retreat, there should be a darn good reason for him to go.
The Wolverine does not provide one.
It's like they had two good ideas. 1. Let's put Logan in Japan -- alien language, clash of culture and hey, samurai swords against adamantium claws! 2. We can use the Silver Samurai.
The whole movie is spent waiting for the second idea to show up. Meanwhile, we've got 'Logan hates to fly', odd but fun Japanese girl with a great sword she actually knows how to use, and a family inheritance squabble right out of an old Dynasty episode. I couldn't summon up a particle of 'give a damn' about the dying old man or his badly-written granddaughter.
Poor Mariko. We don't know what she is like, we hardly see her smile or cry or anything emotional, she's just a 'poor little rich girl' written with all the depth of a caption on a paper doll. But she's pretty so Logan falls for her. Seriously?
Not Yukio, the one with the killer-sword skills who desperately fights off someone trying to kill him while he's helpless, the one with a sense of humor, a real, complex past, and mutant skills. Nope. The conventionally pretty one. Who ignores the fact that he was wounded while trying to protect her to the point where she puts in ear-buds on a train rather than have to deal with him. There is a great fight scene on that train, even though nobody on board seems to notice gun-fire or huge rents ripped in the side.
Hugh Jackman gives his performance all he's got, but the writers didn't give him much to do except glower, have a bath and bleed. The director must have used the 'out-of-focus shot to show Logan's pain/distress' about 16 times. Rila Fukushima (Yukio) and Tao Okamoto (Mariko) give good performances within the limits of the script.
Mind you, Mariko looks mighty fine in either a pair of blue jeans or a lean black kimono. But long legs do not a character make. She's just there to be rescued, just another damsel in distress. Even at that, she's written better than the bad guys...who are just bad for badness' sake. If they had some other reason for being bad than money and power -- wanting to take over the world or something else grandiose -- I must have missed it.
Logan should have stayed in the woods.
Meh.
So when the film-makers drag him, willy-nilly, from his woodland retreat, there should be a darn good reason for him to go.
The Wolverine does not provide one.
It's like they had two good ideas. 1. Let's put Logan in Japan -- alien language, clash of culture and hey, samurai swords against adamantium claws! 2. We can use the Silver Samurai.
The whole movie is spent waiting for the second idea to show up. Meanwhile, we've got 'Logan hates to fly', odd but fun Japanese girl with a great sword she actually knows how to use, and a family inheritance squabble right out of an old Dynasty episode. I couldn't summon up a particle of 'give a damn' about the dying old man or his badly-written granddaughter.
Poor Mariko. We don't know what she is like, we hardly see her smile or cry or anything emotional, she's just a 'poor little rich girl' written with all the depth of a caption on a paper doll. But she's pretty so Logan falls for her. Seriously?
Not Yukio, the one with the killer-sword skills who desperately fights off someone trying to kill him while he's helpless, the one with a sense of humor, a real, complex past, and mutant skills. Nope. The conventionally pretty one. Who ignores the fact that he was wounded while trying to protect her to the point where she puts in ear-buds on a train rather than have to deal with him. There is a great fight scene on that train, even though nobody on board seems to notice gun-fire or huge rents ripped in the side.
Hugh Jackman gives his performance all he's got, but the writers didn't give him much to do except glower, have a bath and bleed. The director must have used the 'out-of-focus shot to show Logan's pain/distress' about 16 times. Rila Fukushima (Yukio) and Tao Okamoto (Mariko) give good performances within the limits of the script.
Mind you, Mariko looks mighty fine in either a pair of blue jeans or a lean black kimono. But long legs do not a character make. She's just there to be rescued, just another damsel in distress. Even at that, she's written better than the bad guys...who are just bad for badness' sake. If they had some other reason for being bad than money and power -- wanting to take over the world or something else grandiose -- I must have missed it.
Logan should have stayed in the woods.
Meh.
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