Review: The Wolverine
Friday, August 2, 2013 at 3:33PM 
When Marvel Comics first introduced Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four to the world in the 1960s, they sparked a comic book revolution. No longer were superheroes the new gods, indestructible and unfailingly heroic Others from distant planets, lands, times (see: Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America) or mysterious 1% recluses (Batman) but something closer to heightened neighbors. Your classmate or coworker or mailman might be a mutant. You might stumble into capes or spandex yourself, should you cross paths with gamma rays or a radioactive spider. The Silver Age heroes had to hold down jobs, keep secrets, and navigate angsty romances or complicated family dynamics. If superheroes were real they'd be hounded by the tabloid press and paparazzi.
In other words... "Superheroes - they're just like us!"
But some super powers are far from relatable. This summer indestructibility has raised its dull head again as the chief power of both the Man of Steel and The Wolverine. This power lacks the proxy pizazz that comes with cooler mutations like flying, telekinesis, web-slinging, flaming on, and so on. Indestructibility just isn't inherently interesting, or at least not visually rich, good only for sticking around. And Wolverine, the world's favorite furry angry Canadian sure does, loitering about the cinema and historical signposts of the ages, too. [more...]
The excruciatingly joyless movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine began with the Civil War, recontextualizing it for the mutton-chopped mutant's backstory. This one begins near the end of World War II, using the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki as its first plot point. One might say that this is nothing to get worked up about since modern superhero films are often shameless in this regard (I can't even with Man of Steel's tasteless 9/11 imagery) and that the best X-Men movie (X2) used The Holocaust as mutant backstory, too. But at least that film's heart was in the right place, using our familiarity with historical atrocity to address thematic concerns and highlight its chief allegory. The Mutants stand in for all Opressed Others. The Wolverine is selfishly brain dead in this regard, concerned not with theme but Instant (Unearned) Dramatic Angst. Its opening sequence, which finds P.O.W. Logan rescuing a Japanese soldier, effectively reduces mushroom clouds and fiery destruction to flattering backlighting for Hugh Jackman's gargantuan muscles and Wolverine's instant-healing capacity. If an atomic bomb can't kill this beast, nothing can!
After that tasteless opening we're in for a long set up which eventually brings Logan to Japan since the man he saved wants to rid him of that pesky immortality so that he himself, now an old man, can use it. Never mind that's Wolverine's power is neither The Fountain of Youth nor Immortality for the film is not concerned with consistency of detail despite the scientific babble coming from the mouths of multiple characters in high tech medical facilities. What the movies does concern itself with is harder to say.
Evil Bitch meets Damsel in Distress
Wolverine's character arc is woefully undernourished (something about engaging with the world again) and despite the thrilling realization that the bulk of the characters are female -- so rare in this genre -- the opportunity is squandered. Mariko (Tao Okamoto), Yukio (Rila Fukushima), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), and Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) are so sketchily drawn that their personalities and relationships to each other and to Logan don't register at all beyond their Schematic Roles: Love Interest, Sidekick, Lost Love, and Evil Bitch, respectively. There are a lot of fights but apart from a high speed train sequence and a brief arresting visual of Wolverine making like Sebastian as archer's target, new helmer James Mangold doesn't demonstrate much skill at lifting action setpieces out of visual chaos and into choreographed grace. The Japanese setting too feels half-hearted with oddly muted visuals where a truly distinct looking superhero picture could have been since so few of them are set outside of Fake New York.
Even if you grew up devouring X-Men comics voraciously (I did) there's just little to care about or relate to in their screen transfers anymore. The franchise has brought us six movies and the only way to stay excited about the movies which, apart from the clever and exciting X-2 (2003), have ranged from decent or mediocre (X-Men, X-Men: First Class) to regular ol' abysmal (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: The Last Stand) is to pretend that the next one will be good. Thus the mandatory "tag" at the end of each superhero movie in which we get a glimpse of the next one. Spoiler Alert: This Wolvie movie ends with a warning about the Sentinels, the giant fucking robots (as if the cinema needed any more of those) which are a constant threat to mutants in the comic books and will factor heavily into X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
But I can't pretend anymore.
Wolverine Does Japan! is a marked improvement over its Origins predecessor but that bar was so low that you don't need anything like super physical powers to clear it. And while it's nowhere near as terrible as that picture its nearly as joyless. If you miss it, no biggie. There'll be another superhero movie in a few months time. Only Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man films and Marvel Studios recent run (Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, and Iron Man 3) have understood that comic books are meant to be fun. Hugh Jackman doesn't seem to be having any and superheroes cannot live on angst alone.
Jackman's megawatt grinning celebrity charm doesn't even make a fleeting cameo. Not that Wolverine has ever been an ebullient character but if you watch the first two X-films Jackman once brought a wider range of feeling to this character including the ability to crack-wise. Jackman's physical exhibitionism is welcome in a genre that often forces its (always male) stars into months of brutal fitness and diet regimens only to cover them up demurely but for one errant shot of the bare torso, but why is the star hiding every emotional part of himself?
By my count he utters one line here that might be mistaken for a joke but it's really just grumpy sadism. He throws a bad guy out a hotel window but the hotel pool breaks his fall.
Mariko: How'd you know there was a pool there?
Wolverine: I didn't.
Jackman's body grows with each film (he's practically a twink in the first film by comparison) but his performance is shrinking. He's played Wolverine six times now so we might justifiably consider it his life's work. But like a sculptor who can't stop fussing, he's pared Logan down to Four Scowls, Three Grunts and Two Stares. He's been chiseling so long that he's losing all human shape. Soon they'll be nothing left but angry rubble.
Grade: D+ (C- if you remind me of the train sequence or the mild camp pleasures of Viper's LOOK AT ME I'M EVIL runway strut in shiny greed gaudiness)
Oscar Chances: Nope. AMPAS doesn't like superhero movies and even in the categories that welcome them (Sound & Visuals) they'll have better films to choose from.
Reader Comments (20)
Get to BLUE JASMINE.
i saw it a few days ago
Ouch!
Wow, you really didn't like it. I'm watching it tonight and had heard pretty much only good things until now.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I'm kind of sick of Wolverine at this point.
Yeah this was where I was at with Wolverine. I've been very surprised to hear that a lot of people really liked it.
Nathan, an intriguing article. I have never seen an X-Men film. Thank you for the validation. Lol
Nat, what are your thoughts on Blue Jasmine? Did you dislike it? Is Cate Blanchett again a disappointment to you?
I shamelessly liked just about everything about the film. I suppose that makes me the official tastelessly lowbrow film fan reading the site.
Nat, I agree, but it seems like when you dislike superhero movies it's always for the same, wrong reason: it's not "fun" enough, which to me translates to "they took it too seriously." Comic-book movies have every right to be treated like something more. The Wolverine didn't succeed at it, but this complaint of yours has become tiresome nonetheless.
tr - I don't think it's unreasonable to expect spectacle movies (i.e. action, musicals, blockbusters of any kind... films with big budgets and big setpieces) to be fun. Fun doesn't necessarily mean "non-serious"... Some of the greatest dramas of all time are very funny. What I'm complaining about is a lack of tonal range. Mad Men is the best show on television and it is very serious. It's also much funnier than a lot of sitcoms. Blue Jasmine can be read as a comedy or a drama, depending on how you look at it.
Comic book movies seem to me, lately at least, to have the same problem as a lot of Prestige Films... they're equating "serious" with "quality" and the two things have nothing to do with each other. Quality comes from execution and happy marriages of content and tone. It does not come from taking yourself so seriously that you have a very limited emotional range.
The only thing I liked about the last Wolverine movie was Taylor Kitsch as Remy LaBeau- I really don't buy Jackman when he does this extreme macho act. And enough with these super hero movies they all look the same after a while.
tr - I would say that I disagree with your translation of the "fun" complaint. I don't think "not fun enough" translates to "took itself too seriously" at all. As an example, The Incredibles is a VERY fun movie, that I think also takes itself VERY seriously. Instead, I see it as, "if you can't find a moment of fun fun in a movie about a dude with claws running around Japan... maybe you're approaching this the wrong way." See also: Avengers.
Here is my review of the film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYo06t5al84
Why can't people just keep their opinions to themselves. ...let people like what they want without name calling and arguing. ...if you don't like a movie go sit in the corner, suck your thumb and watch what you think is a good film..but don't ruin it for everyone eles by slandering it.
the idea of wolverine fighting samuri swordsman is great, and shows his raw ability vs their lifelong training and he actually lost the fight save his regenerative powers, brilliant concept for that character
I am looking foreward to seeing this movie! It appears to be ok!
Nice article, very documented. For surely I will return to your blog
You're really off, you're complaining about Wolverine not being fun and just being all angstrom, but you fail to realize that Wolvie was ALWAYS written with nothing but angst in the comics.
You claim to have devoured Marvel Comics in your childhood but I'm not seeing it, The X-Men franchise has ALWAYS been heavy in angst, Being about social outcasts misunderstood and hounded by the world despite them continually saving it.
Stop pretending to know about Xmen and write about My Little Pony instead, which is all about fun and not about angst.
By the way it was Yukio (the sidekick, remember?) who asked about the pool, not the love interest.
Sigh
Bloggers truly are a dime a dozen, it's sad.
Mochan -- i'm not pretending anything. I KNOW the X-Men comics with Claremont/Byrne. They're deep in my marrow as I grew up on them and if you think it was only angst and you never got the friendship with Nightcrawler, the humor, and other things besides angst... than maybe it's you who should reread them?
I'm not claiming to know anything about how angsty Wolverine got after the 1980s (I stopped reading comics regularly in the mid 90s) but how he was in X2 (part angst, part well rounded character with other things besides angst... ) is much closer to the Wolverine I grew up on then the sorry character he's been in his solo films.