[Movie] Wolverine 2

Is that the Muramasa Blade?

 

It's the Hattori Hanzo

 

Wolverine is a trained samerai

Rocket River
Took the blade from his evil would be father in law.

 

Good effort, not great but could have been if it wasn't for the heavy lifting drama that brought the film to a stagnant halt for the most part. Tons of action/fight scenes/ Wolverine does what Wolverine does, blades his way through yakuza bodies. The blond chick/Viper is fuking hot/godamn, jontro will fap till he flops to his grave...

 

aka Madame Hydra

 

Glad this is getting good early reviews, Origins was such a piece of crap that I was leery of this one.

 

Pretty hard to do any worse than that.

 

Well at least the opening of that movie was pretty cool... That's about it.

 

Saw it last night. I would highly suggest staying after the credits

 

I've heard its totally worth sticking around.

 

I was disappointed.

I don’t know all the details of wolverine’s origin so I was hoping for some more of that. I feel like it was boring and predictable after the initial five minutes. And the ending… I will simply say it is as predictable as an ending of an Episode of Full House.

I think Superman was a lot better than this movie and I heard a lot of people were disappointed with Superman

 

Considering just how much movies have sucked this summer, even if Wolverine is a letdown, it'll be 10 times better than Stupor-man.

 

The scene after the credits was the best part of the movie. I normally don't geek out over comic book movies, but that scene was great!

As for the rest of the movie, I liked it. Some slow parts here and there, but lots of intense action, hot evil boss lady, Yao sized robotic Samurai, fighting on top of a bullet train (lol).

Saw it in 2D, but a few scenes looked like they would look great in 3D.

 

But was it good?

 

Haven't seen Wolverine yet but you guys are INSANE if you think it'll be any better than Man of Steel.

I don't get what there's not to like about Superman anyway, it's not like they tried to remake the Brandon Routh version.

 

I've read what it is and I'd say yes, it's very good.

 

Superman is a p***y compared to Wolverine.

 

Saw this late Thursday night.

This.. THIS.. is the Wolverine movie people have been wanting. This is how the character should have been treated from the very beginning.

8.5/10

Extremely well done.

Spoiler

The movie wastes no time, giving us important background immediately. We see Logan in a Japanese POW camp, unfortunately located at either Nagasaki or Hiroshima (if they said which, I missed it), and also unfortunately on the very day when the a-bomb was dropped right on top of the city.

We see a Japanese officer offering what little kindness he can to a group of POW's, as futile a gesture as it is under the circumstances. The officer, Yashida, is seen by Logan from within the 'hotbox/well' in which he has been confined. Yashida attempts to rescue Logan as well, but Logan indicates that running would be pointless with an atomic bomb about to go off less than a mile away.

Presently Logan rescues Yashida by hiding him in the well, and protecting him from the heat of the blast primarily with his own body. When the terrified Yashida discovers Logan has been almost incinerated, only to then watch him fully heal, he is overwhelmed by what was clearly some sort of miracle, and vows eternal gratitude.

These events set in motion the complex web of the rest of the movie.

The most important aspect of the film is how it treats the character of Wolverine. Which sounds a bit obvious, but it was not obvious to the makers of the previous film, so it needs to be mentioned here.

Logan, now in present day, has withdrawn from society altogether. He is constantly plagued by dreams and nightmares featuring Jean Grey, whom you may recall Logan was forced to kill in the 3rd X-Men movie's conclusion, to prevent her from essentially destroying the world. It had to be done, and he knows it, but he cannot rid himself of the guilt of having to kill the only woman he had ever loved.

And so, in an effort to prevent himself from hurting others again, he has retired to a solitary remote existence in the Yukon.

It's the little touches which help this work, such as while on a trip into town to buy batteries for his radio, we see he has a sort of neighborly relationship with an enormous grizzly bear, and both of the dangerous beasts leave each other alone, apparently out of some form of mutual respect.

But when hunters mortally wound the bear, causing it to go berserk and kill some campers, Logan makes his way into town again, to locate the culprits.

A Logan is about to murder the hunter responsible for the attack on the bear, he is interrupted by a tiny Japanese girl, who proceeds to display her own brand of extreme danger.

She takes Logan from the bar, and informs him she has been searching for him on behalf of the now near-death Yashida, and urges him to come to Japan to say goodbye.

Now one thing which struck me, and it's a thing I really feel the filmmakers got right: The Wolverine is a violent creature. He is not made to negotiate, not made to placate. He is a violent, murdering machine. And the movie does not hide from this. No, we don't see blood, and we barely even see any wounds, and none actually CAUSED by Logan and his claws. But make no mistake, teh death count in this movie is high, and had the filmmakers been interested in doing so, this could have been a pretty hard 'R'-rated movie, had we been shown blood and gore. I understand why it was not done that way, and really it doesn't take away from much. There is no doubt when yet another bad guy dies under The Wolverine's claws.

Now I remember little from reading this series of comics back in the day, but it always struck me as an interesting concept, that this violent berserker beast could somehow embrace the serene and disciplined life of a Samurai. But in the comics, that is what he did, and he became a 'Gaijin' warrior, embracing the ways of repressed dignity and stoic honor.

The problem then, as in the movie, was when he met Yashida's grand-daughter, Mariko.

Logan is thrown into the middle of a virtually nationwide tangle of intrigue and treachery when he arrives in Japan to pay his final respects to Yashida. We learn that Yashida's family has been increasingly under attack by the Japanese mafia, and everyone is on edge, especially the old man himself. Logan is shocked to learn that Yashida now claims to have the technological capability to remove Logan's mutant healing ability, thus making him mortal. Implied in this is Yashida's desire to transfer that healing into himself, as he desperately fears for his family's welfare after he dies, particularly Mariko.

No more story points from here though, just go see it. Nothing is quite what it seems, I will say that.

What impressed me most was the slow-burn transition by Logan, being brought back to life again through discovering actual human love, instead of the constant torture of his dreams. And Mariko was a revelation. Beautiful, intelligent, and in extreme peril, Logan first rescues her, and then she rescues him. Perfect development between these characters.

Now unlike most comic-book movies these days, this remained a very personal story, the story of Logan and his recovery from his self-imposed torture and exile. The stakes were almost completely personal. Yes, there was high-level corporate intrigue, treachery, and lots of people dying, but there was no world-conquering monster, no alien race about to wipe out all of humanity, nothing like that. Even if the 'bad guy' had one, all it really would have meant was more 'status quo'. Nothing earth-shaking. Personal stakes, just several men at cross-purposes, one family, and Logan in the middle of it all, trying to survive and protect the woman he loves.

It was much more on a par with what we have seen with Tony Stark and Iron Man, in some respects, it was that good.

In a movie like this, it is the supporting cast which makes or breaks it. We know Jackman buys into the Wolverine character fully. he gets it, and he really got it in this one. So what really sets this apart is the extremely good job by all of the other characters. Mostly Japanese, they all treat him with varying degrees of bewilderment, curiosity, mirth, disgust and even infatuation. It is a wonderful backdrop in which to drop Logan. It worked.

One word about the 'Viper', whatever her name was, Lady Hydra', whatever.

Awful.

Could not stand the performance. I have seen several people mention how 'hot' she was, and how they really liked her. Ugh. Personal taste I guess. To me, I thought it was a terrible casting choice and a terrible performance. She had one look plastered on her face the entire time (sarcastic-Joan-Cusack-face), and was so generally unappealing that every time she was on screen, it dragged the whole thing down for me.

Other than her, everyone else was excellent.

This was not an origin story. We have had enough of those. This was a meat-and-potatoes character-driven story. This was like a James Bond movie in that respect; we know the character, we already like the character, now let us watch the character DO what we want to see him DO.

And that is what we have been given.

Now in all seriousness, nobody was more disappointed with the first Wolverine movie than I was. Every single choice made in that movie was a bad one.

But this should wipe that bad taste from your mouth.

Go see it.

Oh and DO stay after the end credits begin, trust me.