The Wolverine (2013)
Rating- 12a
Running Time- 2 hours 6 minutes
Directed by- James Mangold
Running Time- 2 hours 6 minutes
Directed by- James Mangold
Written by- Mark Bomback and Scott Frank
Hugh Jackman may think he’s a well-respected actor for all of the many wonderful and varied roles he has played throughout his career but the fact is that nine out of ten people know him only as Wolverine. This doesn’t seem to bother him though as he’s back as everyone’s favourite mutant loner and, judging from the after credit scene, this isn’t the last time he will don the spiky hair and metal claws. But should we be excited by this or should we start packing away our Wolverine action figures and put to rest the time when he was by far the coolest superhero in existence? Well there are many signs to suggest that we are witnessing the redemption of the adamantium filled emo after his very poor outing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) all but ruined the character.
The film was surprisingly good and definitely surpassed my expectations. Those of you who read my review of Man of Steel (2013) will know that I had just about lost patience with comic book movies so it was to my great surprise that I left the cinema with a positive feeling rather than one of great anger and frustration. But why did this film make me feel this way? Quite simply because it steered clear, in the main, from any of the clichéd routines of recent comic book movies. This almost didn’t feel like a comic book movie at all which, in my opinion, is a good thing. Rather than focusing on Wolverine’s powers it focused on his weaknesses, both emotionally and physically, which made him as relatable as a guy with indestructible metal claws can be. This isn’t the first time this side of Wolverine has tried to be played upon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was entirely built around this premise but failed due to a lack of empathy because of the introduction of characters we had never met before yet are expected to know exactly how Wolverine feels about them all without any sort of explanation. This film doesn’t suffer from this though as all of Wolverine’s emotional pain is conveyed through Jean Grey, a character we already know, and the great guilt he feels for his part in her death i.e. killing her. While most of us don’t know what it’s like to be forced to live an eternity with the burden of someone’s life weighing down on us, we still fully understand what he’s going through and the film is built around this.
But, guess what, it is ruined by a final battle scene that would fit perfectly into any comic book movie. But not this one. I was so happy that the film was able to steer clear of any stereotypical comic book movie action scenes that seem to be way over the top and make your enjoyment of the movie plummet, but it didn’t last. The final fight scene has far too much going on at the same time; at one point it seemed that Wolverine was fighting three different villains at the same time and none of it seemed to make sense, it wasn’t until it was a clear one on one fight that I was fully aware of what was going on and even that seemed stupid. This unfortunately spoilt the film to a huge degree for me and it may not have been the only negative aspect, the character of Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) seemed out of place and easily replaceable, it was the only one that I wasn’t willing to overlook.
There is also the expected ‘cheesy’ dialogue at times which is not necessarily detrimental as comic books are built with cheese, or paper, one of the two. But I think this film manages to incorporate the cheese with a heavy layer of crackers which makes it so that the one-liners don’t go too far despite seeming out of place in regards to the narrative, making the line “I am Wolverine” less groan worthy than it should be.
So overall, despite enjoying three quarters of the movie, the final quarter of the final fight scene was enough to render this movie slightly above average when it could have been so much more. Having said that, the after credit scene was enough to get me excited for the next film and went some way erasing all of the bad scenes of the movie from my find but didn’t manage it completely unfortunately.
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| Final Rating. Three Stars. |
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