The Wolverine

Yeah it’s not bad. It was fun to watch and just about gets to the quality level of X-Men and X2, which I suppose is something we should all be happy about in light of the third X-men installment and that other Wolverine film.

There are a good amount of stupid moments:

“what was done to me – what I am can’t be undone”  - err yeah it can, remember that third X-Men film where they figured out how to remove your mutation? You were there, the events haunt you to this day…

On that point, framing the film in Logan’s emotional trauma following the events of “The Last Stand” is probably the best part of this film. The Last Stand suffered mainly because it lacked any kind of focus and “Origins” was just a shameless cash-in. Making this film about Wolverine recovering from the events of the third X-Men installment, gives it a meaning that goes beyond “let’s have a big fight.”

Also, making Wolverine an emotionally vulnerable character is the way to go. X2 gave the impression that Wolverine was so traumatised by the event of being filled with Adimantium, that he suppressed the memories of who he was. Of course this was changed by “Origins” which asked us to swallow that Wolverine lost his memory as a result of shot in the head, causing damage to the memory centre of his brain…to digress slightly from this review, that makes no sense. His power is to heal from anything and you’re saying that destroying a particular section of his brain will erase his memories.

If he can heal his physical body from anything to restore it to the condition it was in before and there is a physical part of his brain where his memories are stored, then destroying it wouldn’t do anything. It would heal and be exactly the same as it was before, memories and all.

Saying that Logan was so emotionally damaged by certain events of his life is a far more plausible a way of him becoming the Wolverine that we see in X-Men and all the films that follow it. It’s also an important message about people; even those who are literally invincible can be destroyed when something horrific enough is done to them.

This is exactly what “The Wolverine” does and it moves to get the character back on track, in time for “Days of Future Past.”

So anyway, it’s alright, not great by any stretch of the imagination, but alright, which will do after the last Wolverine-centric films.  

Mini-Reviews

Doctor Who The Bells of St John Prequel.

Enough of the Doctor meeting the companions as children! I get that the Smith-Doctor is supposed to exist in fairytale environment (rather than the sci-fi/drama/realism environment of Tennant and Eccleston), but change up the opening. He always accidentally runs into the new companion as a child, so she has a reason to be fascinated by him for a good couple of decades before she meets him again; the formula is getting old, so old that I knew who that little girl on the swing was as soon as she sat down!! The Easter return of the show had better be good; and there’d better be no dinosaurs!

Les Miserables.

This is without a doubt one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Sure the songs are good, but aside from Hugh Jackman’s character, no one gets developed beyond “in this movie.”

Epic tale of love and rebellion my arse. This is story about a man skipping parole and an overzealous Police officer, with a rebellion and love story happening in the background, but acting as though they’ve been happening the whole time. On that point, the love story is the laziest kind of love story there is; they are two characters that find each other similarly physically attractive and barely speak to one another.

Russell Crowe is horribly miscast and the only good thing about his appearance in he film is the sound effect his body makes when he commits suicide, as a result a result of being an absolute moron.

To summerise, this is a film (not unlike James Cameron’s Titanic) that is all about spectacle, rather than substance. It has been continually marketed as an epic about love and rebellion, when really all it is, is a story about Hugh Jackman skipping parole and being pursued by what appears to be the only police officer in France.