The Wolverine
For those of you who don't know I am something of a fan of the original X Men trilogy and I go into detail about it on the latest 2-part epic X-Men episode of the podcast from The After Movie Diner.
The 1st part deals with the main X-men Trilogy We ALSO talk Man of Steel and Pacific Rim a little too.
RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3 OF PART 1
The 2nd part deals with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine
RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3 OF PART 2
However, I feel that the two prequel films Origins: Wolverine and First Class add very little to the franchise (although First Class is vastly superior to Origins, of course). It was with a little bit of trepidation then that I went to see the new instalment of the franchise, The Wolverine.
It's basically a sequel to X3: The Last Stand while also giving you more back story, more character and more information about the nature and personality of Logan/Wolverine, it's also the age old comic-book story of 'Superhero loses powers and learns deep abiding truths and the value and responsibility of wielding that power' but it tells it the best way I have ever seen that story told AND it's also a 70s Yakuza film complete with operatic and Shakespearean family drama, some sword wielding and, yes, even ninjas. It has a lot to accomplish, including being an entertaining comic-book, action, blockbuster film and it manages it all with grace, skill, awesome performances, mature pacing and an adult, serious slant.
It's not filled to bursting with whizz crash bangery but when the action and fighting take place it's awesome, especially in the first couple of acts. I have to say that the ending climax seemed a little flat to me and while there were lots of cool moments, as a whole it felt underwhelming after the fights that had come before.
Although it's PG-13, the film is more adult in tone and in pacing. It's slower, it doesn't talk down to the audience and, in fact, even has quite a bit of swearing and some mild gore, certainly more than any of the previous films. Anyone remember those three tiny cut marks on Mystique after Wolverine was meant to have stabbed her back in X1? well them days are long gone, thankfully, although the film-makers don't spill half as much crimson as would actually be spraying everywhere if this was real.
I know there are some out there who wish Fox and Marvel would get off the whole Wolverine kick and give someone else a chance in the limelight but this is truly the film the character and the patient, loyal Jackman deserve and he is particularly excellent in this film. Hugh Jackman has kept this character on when many other actors might have fled and despite the questionable turn of events in X-Men Origins, ignoring that, there is a wonderful continuity throughout the other 5 films that is continued and developed here.
In fact, considering the desire of a studio to often make these films 'stand alone' there is a certain plot strand involving Jean Grey that you really have to have seen, at least, the original trilogy to appreciate.
I felt this instalment added more to Wolverine's character than ever before and finally all the pieces for me, as a non comic book reader and just a movie goer, fell into place. Jackman does a wonderful job of conveying Logan's journey like we haven't seen before.
I can't fault the direction or the performances much at all, Rila Fukushima especially is a great sidekick that I hope crops up again one day, and while the script, much like previous films in the franchise, does a great job of juggling all the plot, character development, back story and action, it has a harder time finding good, decent, crowd pleasing one liners for Jackman to growl on, chew up and spit out with glee. There are attempts but nothing truly satisfying and it's been this way since X-Men 1. Someone needs to do an anti-hero cheesy one-liner punch up on the script. Get Schwarzenegger's old writers on it or something!
Also, MORE NINJA FIGHTING!!
Apart from that I can't suggest you see The Wolverine too highly. It's a good time at the cinema but avoid the 3D it really does add absolutely nothing, sadly.
8 out of 10 adamantium wolf meat kabab skewers
World War Z
FAIRLY SPOILER FREE
When I say 'I like Zombie films' I realise, now, that I am talking about really only a handful of movies. George A Romero's original trilogy, Lucio Fulci's Zombie, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Re-Animator, The Return of the Living Dead and that's more or less it. There are probably a few more I am not thinking of right now and probably a few from the genre's heyday that I haven't seen yet but I list these films merely to shed light on where and who this review is coming from.
Notice how I didn't include 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films I like very much but, to me, they are NOT zombie films. They are post-apocolyptic infection films but they are NOT zombie films. People get infected while living, the dead don't rise from their graves and the infected don't die before they come back with the 'rage' contamination.
I mention this because World War Z is NOT a zombie film (in my mind). NOT AT ALL
It is basically the story of a world wide violent rage/rabies infection seen through the eyes of one perpetually stoned, lank haired, hipster scarf wearing, former UN investigator played by Brad Pitt.
I am not sure I have ever seen a film with such massive, global set pieces that is so utterly bland and underwhelming. This is not to say it's an altogether BAD film because it's not but it's not anything special either. It lacks a sense of humour, a sense of style, a decent soundtrack, engaging characters or any cool at all.
Since zombie films and zombie film remakes became tediously the rage in the last 10 years the genre has distinctly lacked any cool. The zombie films of the seventies and eighties are still popular today because they had iconic soundtracks, great lines spoken by characters you liked, disliked or had a complex series of mixed emotions about, they had metaphor and meaning, style and substance and fantastic gore.
World War Z really doesn't have any of that. What it does have is a global scale, some nice tension at the beginning, a cameo from David Morse that could've gone on MUCH longer and some weak underlying message about how we should all just get along. It feels more like a bland alien invasion movie.
Brad Pitt is hideously miscast, misdressed and woefully haired. He was about as convincing a UN investigator as Denise Richards was a nuclear physicist (in The World Is Not Enough). He was also bland as a beige pair of slacks on a wax model of a local news anchor from Des Moines.
To improve this film you should've cast a ton of people and instead of just following 1 man, who seemingly doesn't eat or sleep for a week as he travels from South Korea to Wales and everywhere in between, you follow lots of people around the world all detailing the outbreak in their own way. That at least would allow for some characters. Say what you like about mindless tat like Independence Day or 2012 but at least they have a sense of humour and are fantastically entertaining.
The film attempts to seriously portray what it would be like if an infection took over the human race and turned us into canabalistic rage monkeys. It also attempts to have a story that wraps up in a predictable 'satisfying' way, some set pieces on a grand scale that you haven't seen before and some wishy-washy guff about how we should work together and, in that regard, it's a complete success.
The CGI is not terrible or annoying, it is shot and edited competently and at least the first act attempts some tension and the last act attempts to be a bit more exciting. It does have one scene though that proves that, even in the midst of apocalypses, mobile phones are fucking annoying.
It thinks it's way smarter and better than it is when really it's all just too serious and a bit dull. It's, also, weirdly, one of the most bloodless films of its kind in existence (obviously to capitalise on the recent zombie craze and pack em in at all ages!).
If you're still curious then it is worth one watch and maybe I am just jaded and burnt out but I was watching the film thinking, if this had anyone else in the lead and a Goblin soundtrack this would already be 10 times better.
5 out of 10 bloodless dry steaks in a beige sack