Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 16, 2015 10:19:19 GMT -5
Took me a while to finally see this movie. It was actually pretty good for its first two acts, but like so many Marvel movies it degenerated into a generic video game for the third. Pity.
The Japanese locale was brilliant and the urban fight scenes were well done. I liked the "fish out of water" aspect of the movie (in which Logan doesn't speak Japanese). The characters were pretty well developed, too, and the twist at the end did surprise me. Good job there.
Many details annoyed men here and there; some of them trivial, some less so.
The opening scene is dramatic, sure, but it could easily have been more accurate historically and technically without losing any of its impact. Does the fireball of an atomic explosion really grow that slowly? Perhaps the city was just farther away than I thought, but the impression I got was that this was one lazy bomb. (No wonder they called it fat man!)
The movie shows the bomb falling almost to ground level, but it actually went off at an altitude of half a kilometer (to maximise damage). It had also been dropped from an altitude of nearly 29,000 feet, not from barely above ground, and the weather was cloudy that day, not bright and sunny. None of that is important to the story, I realize, but since care was given to give the scene a (welcome) historical feel, it could have gone the extra distance.
("We give you a scene in which Wolverine survives the bombing of Nagasaki and you complain about details? Get thee to a documentary, ungrateful X-fan!")
Comic-book science: I really dislike the idea that a "superpower" could be drained off as if it were gasoline. That mad scientist types could imitate superpowers, as they did in the first Wolvie movie, I can sort of understand -it's biological reverse engineering of some kind. But how do you just plonk a needle into somebody's body and suck out a so-called "healing factor" that makes you young and healthy again in a matter of seconds? If it works that way, why in hell doesn't the X-mansion infirmary stock Wolverine blood in case of emergencies? Why doesn't Xavier use it to repair his spine? It's too much like magic, especially in a movie that is generally a bit more down to Earth than other Marvel films.
Also, what's the deal with having Logan lose his claws if he just gets them back (offscreen, even!) for the next instalment in the X-franchise? Did that little bit of maiming really add anything to the movie? Sure, it's an unexpected twist... but one without consequences, and a bit off-putting. As a movie goer, I much prefer seeing Logan kick ass than seeing him get whipped. (I had the same criticism for the otherwise astonishingly good Panther's rage story arc in the old Jungle action comics: seeing T'Challa get beat up and/or tortured every issue got to be tiring).
The post credit scene is pretty confusing, too. Charles Xavier miraculously is back from the dead, with a sibylline explanation: "Logan, you're not the only one with special abilities". Er... okay, we had seen Charles transfer his mind to the body of a brain-dead patient in the post-credit scene of X-Men 3. But why is he back in his old body? Did he have his new host body reshaped by Masque or some other mutant the movie universe didn't present yet? And if so, why is he still in a wheelchair? Is Magneto the one who puts the adamantium back on Logan's claws? Mags has his powers back, as had been hinted at the end of X-Men 3. Does that mean the anti-mutant vaccine from that movie stops working after a while? I'm confused!
The experience is therefore a mixed bag. I expected a straightforward film about Wolverine fighting ninjas, and got that for two thirds of a film; then I got an overlong CGI fight and ended up with a continuity-heavy conundrum.
"Heh!" someone could say. "It's the X-Men!"
One thing I didn't mind at all was seeing Jean as Logan's unrequited love playing an important part in the film. I'm a Scott & Jean fan, not a Logan & Jean one, but I'm fine with the idea that the movies use these relationships differently. I want the X-Men films to be internally coherent, not to follow the comic-book mythology to the letter.
The final verdict? Worth seeing once if one is into super hero movies.
The Japanese locale was brilliant and the urban fight scenes were well done. I liked the "fish out of water" aspect of the movie (in which Logan doesn't speak Japanese). The characters were pretty well developed, too, and the twist at the end did surprise me. Good job there.
Many details annoyed men here and there; some of them trivial, some less so.
The opening scene is dramatic, sure, but it could easily have been more accurate historically and technically without losing any of its impact. Does the fireball of an atomic explosion really grow that slowly? Perhaps the city was just farther away than I thought, but the impression I got was that this was one lazy bomb. (No wonder they called it fat man!)
The movie shows the bomb falling almost to ground level, but it actually went off at an altitude of half a kilometer (to maximise damage). It had also been dropped from an altitude of nearly 29,000 feet, not from barely above ground, and the weather was cloudy that day, not bright and sunny. None of that is important to the story, I realize, but since care was given to give the scene a (welcome) historical feel, it could have gone the extra distance.
("We give you a scene in which Wolverine survives the bombing of Nagasaki and you complain about details? Get thee to a documentary, ungrateful X-fan!")
Comic-book science: I really dislike the idea that a "superpower" could be drained off as if it were gasoline. That mad scientist types could imitate superpowers, as they did in the first Wolvie movie, I can sort of understand -it's biological reverse engineering of some kind. But how do you just plonk a needle into somebody's body and suck out a so-called "healing factor" that makes you young and healthy again in a matter of seconds? If it works that way, why in hell doesn't the X-mansion infirmary stock Wolverine blood in case of emergencies? Why doesn't Xavier use it to repair his spine? It's too much like magic, especially in a movie that is generally a bit more down to Earth than other Marvel films.
Also, what's the deal with having Logan lose his claws if he just gets them back (offscreen, even!) for the next instalment in the X-franchise? Did that little bit of maiming really add anything to the movie? Sure, it's an unexpected twist... but one without consequences, and a bit off-putting. As a movie goer, I much prefer seeing Logan kick ass than seeing him get whipped. (I had the same criticism for the otherwise astonishingly good Panther's rage story arc in the old Jungle action comics: seeing T'Challa get beat up and/or tortured every issue got to be tiring).
The post credit scene is pretty confusing, too. Charles Xavier miraculously is back from the dead, with a sibylline explanation: "Logan, you're not the only one with special abilities". Er... okay, we had seen Charles transfer his mind to the body of a brain-dead patient in the post-credit scene of X-Men 3. But why is he back in his old body? Did he have his new host body reshaped by Masque or some other mutant the movie universe didn't present yet? And if so, why is he still in a wheelchair? Is Magneto the one who puts the adamantium back on Logan's claws? Mags has his powers back, as had been hinted at the end of X-Men 3. Does that mean the anti-mutant vaccine from that movie stops working after a while? I'm confused!
The experience is therefore a mixed bag. I expected a straightforward film about Wolverine fighting ninjas, and got that for two thirds of a film; then I got an overlong CGI fight and ended up with a continuity-heavy conundrum.
"Heh!" someone could say. "It's the X-Men!"
One thing I didn't mind at all was seeing Jean as Logan's unrequited love playing an important part in the film. I'm a Scott & Jean fan, not a Logan & Jean one, but I'm fine with the idea that the movies use these relationships differently. I want the X-Men films to be internally coherent, not to follow the comic-book mythology to the letter.
The final verdict? Worth seeing once if one is into super hero movies.
