the Wolverine: Unleashed Edition Review

Director: James Mangold

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamaoto and Rila Fukushima

Released: July 26^th 2013

Based on the Characters Appearing in: Marvel Comics

SPOILERS BEWARE

Remember when they announced that they were going to try to make another standalone Wolverine movie? I do, I was scared shitless. X-Men Origins is probably one of the worst comic book movies ever, Wolverine is a great character to put on screen, he had already been in five films (First Class does count) and Hugh Jackman really made the character his own. However the problem with making a standalone Wolverine movie is that it has to be done right, like to a ridiculous degree. Too much Logan in a film and your movie is just going to crumble under the gigantic and intimidating personality of the character. Wolverine works when there is someone else to counteract his defiant personality, ala Cyclops.  X-Men Origins was not only just a horribly written movie, but had far too much Wolverine for its own good, there was no balance between the supporting characters, the plot, and the titular character.

Originally Darren Aronofsky was supposed to direct the film-how awesome would that have been!-but he had to drop out because he wanted to be close to his family and the film was shooting primarily in Japan.  This alone already indicated that Fox was taking this run with Wolverine very seriously; I already knew it was going to be a very different movie compared to 2009’s flop. Eventually, Girl Interrupted director James Mangold jumped onto the picture and production went under way. It was around this time that Days of Future Past was also announced; The Wolverine would set the stage for Bryan Singers epic X-Men crossover event and would serve as a sequel of sorts to the Last Stand.

I personally really enjoyed the Wolverine, which I am sure a vast majority of people did as well; it was one of the best comic book movies that came out of 2013. However I'm not here to talk about the theatrical release of the film, if you’re going to talk about or watch the Wolverine there is only one version you have to see, the Unleashed Edition. Ok, it’s just a fancy name for the Unrated Directors Cut of the movie; the only way you could get this version of the film was if you forked up the money for the 3D Blu Ray combo.  20^th Century Fox has done this before, when Prometheus was released on home video. The only way to get all of the glorious special features was to purchase the 3D combo, it’s a stupid tactic indeed, and I don’t have a 3D Blu Ray player nor a 3D TV and I don’t plan on buying one any time soon.

The Unleashed Edition adds only 12 minutes to the movies original running time, a very small add on I know. This shouldn't be the reason why you don’t watch the movie, because this version of the movie actually gives us the best portrayal of Logan ever! In this version we get the cussing, and more importantly we get the gore that should accompany a movie about a man with blades coming out of his knuckles. The Wolverine Unleashed Edition enhances this movie in almost every level imaginable, giving us not only a fantastic comic book movie but a film that can easily stand on its own merits as a standalone feature, as it is supposed to do in the first place!

Taking place a few years after the Last Stand, The Wolverine shows us a Logan (Jackman) who has left the X-Men and moved back to Canada. Logan is living his life as a hermit and is haunted by the death of the woman he loved (Jean Grey who is one again reprised in some haunting visions by Famke Janssen). For Logan, life has little meaning now, afraid that he will hurt more people he has cut himself off from all Human and Mutant contact, that is until the past comes knocking. Logan is discovered by the mysterious Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who comes looking for the Wolverine in order to send him to Japan to meet dying business man Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) who Wolverine once saved in WWII. Yashida gives Logan a very lucrative offer, if Logan gives Yashida some of his blood and protects his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), Yashisa will remove his healing factor giving Logan something he’s always longed for, a normal life. Of course Logan gets more than he bargained for when he is ultimately wrapped up in corporate warfare involving ninjas and a mysterious female Mutant.

The Wolverine was already a pretty decent movie, but like I said above this Unleashed version just throws it into such amazing territory. Everything about this movie is awesome and I hope that its sequel is just as good. The great thing about this movie is that it doesn't even feel like a comic book movie. Everything down with how the way the movie was shot gives us a darker more mature story that hardly feels like an X-Men movie at all. Rarely do I approve of the more “realistic” approach that summer blockbusters have been going for after the Dark Knight Trilogy, but it works extremely well with the Wolverine. The character of Wolverine can easily be thrown into a realistic situation; you just need to have the proper balance with the characters. The way that the Wolverine was able to accomplish this feat was by having only three Mutants in the entire film. We have (obviously) Logan, Yukio, and one of the films villains, Viper played be Svetlana Khodchenkova, more on her later.

In my X-Men Origins review I mentioned how the screen writers originally wanted to adapt Frank Millers famous Japan Saga. They finally got their chance with the Wolverine, Fox learned that maybe they should back off a bit and let the writers do their own thing, the only studio interference that is in this movie is the post credits sequence which links the Wolverine to Days of Future Past. I love Japan, down to its culture and history, and the movie is actually shot on location! There isn't many sets in the Wolverine, a large portion of the film is shot in the streets of Tokyo and small Japanese fishing communities, it gives the movie some guerilla film making qualities to it that makes it feel all the more realistic and believable. Japan is such a vibrant country, it’s almost like another world and they really play on Logan being a fish out of water, being forced to deal with Japanese customs (which is highly amusing). Tokyo is such a colourful city that it really makes the location of the movie feel like a major character in itself.

On to the characters, Hugh Jackman has never been more perfect for Wolverine. After watching all the other X-Men films you can see how he fully immersed himself into the role for this outing. Hugh Jackman was no more, he had transformed into Huge Jackedman! Really just look at how different he looks from the first X-Men movie and the Wolverine, the guy got huge. I've never seen an actor get the physique of the character down to such a meticulous degree. Jackman was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Les Mesrables and for the first time in the entire X-Men franchise we get to see his talent. He adds so many Human layers to this character that the film ultimately becomes a fantastic character study on Wolverine. Iron Man 3 attempted this route with Tony Stark, but the Wolverine blows that out of the park. You can really feel the pain that Logan has been dealing with after the Last Stand, and throwing the Japan Saga in this direction was a very good idea. We've never seen Logan this vulnerable before and for once audiences can finally sympathize with this character, this is everything they wanted to do in Origins but they finally got it right! Jackman also throws himself head first into the action scenes; he puts Logans fury on full display in this film. We get to see that berserker rage that has only been slightly tapped into on past films. This time we get Wolverine destroying enemies that stand absolutely no chance against him, he is just so perfect for this role. After the Wolverine anyone who is tired of Jackman as the character will want him to stay on forever.

Tao Okamoto plays Mariko, the young woman that Logan is hired to protect. She helps Logan to overcome the darkness that has been controlling him for so many years and is such a fantastic addition to the X-Men filmverse. It’s honestly hard to believe that this is her first film, I thought she was at least a famous Japanese drama star when I first saw this movie, there’s this raw talent that even blew Jackman away when they were filming. She gorgeous and her performance is just filled with an emotional punch that makes you feel for this character and her growing relationship with the beast that’s been hired to protect her.

My personal favourite addition to the cast was Yukio played by Rila Fukushima. Yukio is a young mutant with the ability of Death Perception. Think of it as a pre-cog that can only see when someone will die. Rila Fukushima gives the character this life that makes Yukio a scene stealer, even from Jackmans amazing performance as Logan. Yukio has some awesome action sequences as well, she's a skilled swordsman and uses her skills with a sword to decimate her enemies. In the Unleashed edition she gets a pretty awesome scene added to the mountaintop fight, I won’t spoil it but there is a lot of blood. I really hope we see her again in future instalments of the X-Men franchise.

The film also stars Will Yun Lee who plays the mysterious ninja named Harada, this isn't his first comic book film, but we like to pretend that “that” film never existed *cough* Elektra *cough*. We also have Hiroyuki Sanada and Svetlana Khodchenkova as the films villains, Shingen and Viper, which leads into the most disappointing aspects of the film.

The villains suck; there is no other way to put it. The Wolverine is a great film but on the antagonistic aspect it falls short. Almost all of the other characters who are not villainous are well developed; it’s just that these characters seem like cookie cutter character traits thrown onto the film to give Wolverine a reason to slice into someone.

First let’s get onto Shingen, who as I said above is played by Hiroyuki Sanada. Sanada is a great actor, you've probably seen him before, he’s like the Japanese equivalent of “that guy” that you see in movies. His credits include the Last Samurai, Sunshine and this year’s 47 Ronin and an entire plethora of films. Shingen is probably the most well developed of the films villains, if you can even say that. The moment they show him the film tries it’s hardest to make you hate him, you can tell right off the bat that this guy is going to be the villain, from the moment he gives Wolverine a very defensive glare, to flat out beating his daughter in front of onlookers. The movie then tries to throw on the plot to make you think he isn't “that bad” but it’s quite obvious that the guy is just an asshole. His goals an ambitions are typical for a movie revolving around a corporation, he wants to be the CEO, his daughter just happens to be in the way. We've seen it thousands of times before, however he does get the coolest action sequence in the entire movie.

Viper who is played by Svetlana Khodchenkova is horribly underdeveloped. The character is actually Mother Viper a Hydra leader. However as I am sure you've already guessed, Hydra isn't part of the X-Men film universe, it’s with Disney/ Marvel. So the character has been turned into a Mutant with the ability to, make Poison? The movie is incredibly vague about her skill set; Khodchenkova plays the character like Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, in fact the character is exactly like Poison Ivy even down to the way she talks. She’s a misandristic Mutant who turns out to only be a glorified henchman in the main villain’s overly convoluted plot to take Wolverine’s abilities.

Yes, there is a twist in this movie, and it is completely obvious. The moment Wolverine goes to Japan and meets all of the main Japanese characters you can pretty much call out how the rest of the movie is going to play out, there is a secret hidden mastermind behind everything in this movie and it is a spoiler so I'm just going to delve into it

SPOILER START

The Villain is Yashida, the moment he tells Wolverine he wants his abilities you know he’s going to do something shady to get what he wants, the guy is the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the X-Men film Universe! What did you think he was going to do? he’s taking a play right out of Peter Weyland’s book. The old man is dying and wants to live forever.  The moment that he “dies” sets the entire film into motion, and I knew that he just couldn't be dead, Viper is his nurse for Christ sake. In fact I don’t think the movie tells you why a character who is so misandristic would even help a man in the first place, it goes against the characters morals entirely, and she gains absolutely nothing from Yashida receiving Wolverine’s healing abilities. His plan in itself is so convoluted it makes no sense, if Viper is able to ambush Logan and poison him while he is sleeping, why couldn't they just do the bone marrow transplant from his claws-yes that’s how he intends to get his powers-then? This all ultimately leads to the very strange climax of the movie where Yashida’s dead body is put into an adamantium samurai mech-suit which feels like its taken strait from a different script.

SPOILERS END

As I said at the end of the spoiler section, the films other main fault is its climax. The movie started out with such a great balance of gritty realism that it just completely flies in the opposite direction the moment the film has 30 minutes left. I understand that this is a comic book movie, but that doesn't mean the movie has to have a big sci-fi battle sequence right at the end, it completely throws you out of the film and takes a bit to get readjusted to the complete change of pace. Not only is the final battle completely unrealistic with the rest of the film, the moment the villains reveal their master plan you can’t help but shake your head in disbelief. They actually go through with some strange bizarre choices at the end of the film. Sure the final fight is really neat, but it completely detracts from the rest of the movie and feels like it came from a separate film entirely.

All in all The Wolverine is a pretty good movie. It really delves into Logans character in a way that not even the original X-Men trilogy had accomplished. The characters in this movie are all very interesting and lead to some great human drama. But the films villains are horribly lacking in the development department and are completely unbelievable characters, and the films climax really threw me out of the movie, despite it being really cool and neat.

All in all I give the Theatrical cut of the Wolverine a

7/10

Whereas the Unleashed edition gets a

7.5/10

The bloody action and the extra scenes are more than enough to boost the rating. However even with some of the extra scenes we don’t get a lot of growth from the villains and I still find some of their motivations (other than the main baddie) to be unbelievable. Still check it out, it’s a kick-ass movie and I can’t wait to see what Mangold has brewing for the second Wolverine film. And like I said at the beginning of the review stay during the credits, that way you won't be so confused when you see Days of Future Past