Caught this over the weekend with my wife and kid. I must say, my expectations weren't really that high since most sequels tanked at the box office (save for films like Back to The Future 2 or The Empire Strikes Back etc). My son was eagerly anticipating to watch the flick when he was first told that the Silver Samurai was making his appearance. He loves Marvel Comics' characters and ninjas/samurais and that was just what The Wolverine gave us. Perfect.
For the record, I personally love the whole back story of Logan/Wolvie's past. But my immediate question to my wife upon watching the opening scene of the film was..."Where the heck is Sabretooth?". If you can recall the Wolverine: Origins flick, you'd probably remember that after making a run from their family, both Logan and Victor (that's Sabretooth's real name by the way) made it through all kinds of different wars TOGETHER since the Civil War, World War II included. Small complaint but I felt that they should've explained his absence, perhaps just a hint or nudge on his whereabouts during the time would be sufficient.
There were familiar faces adapted directly from the comic pages namely Yukio, Mariko, The Silver Samurai, Shingen Yashida and the villainess Viper. So fans of the '82 comic series of the same name would feel at home immediately with them. Even if you haven't read the comics before, you'd be able to enjoy this film since the film started rather at a slow pace building up on the back story explaining stuff as the movie progresses. The 'cameos' of Jean Grey added even more drama into an already emotional ride faced by Logan as he dealt with Jean's death in X:3.
At well over 2 hours of run time, The Wolverine had ample time to do back story and stuff. Although at times the movie felt a bit draggy and long-winded, those are essential build ups before its big finale at the end. I would love for FOX and MARVEL STUDIOS to explore more back story of some of their characters now that they've set a high bar with The Wolverine.
***WARNING...SPOILER ALERT!*** (don't proceed if you haven't watched the movie yet!)
The best part of the movie came in the form of the end credits (well....mid-credits if you must). This serves as a teaser of what's to come next in the X-franchise and cameos from (Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart) Magneto & Professor X! More mysteries for us as Magneto and Charles Xavier both needs to explain how they regain the magnetism ability and coming back from the dead respectively! All this in next year's highly anticipated Days of Future Past (DOFP) movie!
Logan even caught a glimpse of a commercial on a nearby television for Trask Industries. For those unfamiliar with the comic, Trask Industries is the company responsible in making the Sentinels that would ultimately hunt down the X-Men in the next film, DOFP (2014). I've talked about this in one of my previous post. Personally I can't wait for the next movie. The Wolverine here paves the way for the next big event in the X-Men movie-verse. Like most Marvel/X-Men fan, I highly recommend you to watch The Wolverine to quench your insatiable thirst while you wait for the next X-Men movie to pop up in theatres next year!
Comments