For those that know me, they know that I am not really a fan of actors. I could really care less who is in front of the camera 8 times out of 10, there are a few exceptions I'll grant you but what gets my butt in a seat more times than not is the person behind the camera. The person behind the camera, if they know what they're doing can make bad casting seem like genius. A competent director can and usually does earn my trust, not the first time out though. No, that trust is hard to earn, but a director who brings me consistency is a director whose career I will definitely follow. James Mangold is such a director. I can forgive and look past his Cop Land with Sylvester Stallone. It was his second movie, he was young, shit happens. It's what he did after that movie that impressed me. His follow up film was Girl, Interrupted. That film earned Angelina Jolie her Academy Award and put Winona Ryder on the map, that was when I first took notice of him. His next three films ran the gamut of styles and each one was a good film. After Girl, he did Kate & Leopold, the rom com with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan, then there was the engaging thriller Identity that starred Ray Liotta and John Cusack, and then his amazing Oscar nominated movie Walk The Line, the biopic on Johnny Cash which won Reese Witherspoon her Academy award. If you can make a kid from the Bronx watch a movie on Johnny Cash and and have him find it interesting, you've done a pretty damn good job. My favorite Mangold film though was his remake of 3:10 to Yuma, a western that starred Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. A gritty, violent, and at times charming movie, 3:10 hooked me and to me, that is a list of films that screams consistent.
I say all that to say that he was pretty much one of the few directors that could get me interested in seeing another stand alone Wolverine movie after the last Wolverine debacle. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, directed by the decent Gavin Hood, was just offensive and insulting to fans everywhere who loved Logan/Wolverine. After that movie I felt that if they were just going to do a film that was a quick cash grab, they wouldn't get the chance to grab anymore of MY cash. Then I heard word of another Wolverine movie, this time with Mangold directing and I perked up. I wasn't sure if he had the chops to do a superhero movie but I knew he was a talented storyteller so I checked it out based on James Mangold and no other reason. I'm glad I did. The Wolverine is a story of Logan who is summoned to Japan by a man he saved when America dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. Hugh Jackman, again working with Mangold accepts the offer extended to him from one of the wealthiest men in Japan, Yashida, played by Hal Yamanouchi. Yashida wants to say thank you and goodbye to Logan, he also wants to give Logan a gift, he wants to turn him mortal. As Logan considers the offer Yashida dies and leaves his entire fortune and company not to his son Shingen, played by the talented Hiroyuki Sanada but to his very lovely granddaughter Mariko, played by Tao Okamoto. The story then gets predictable, but there are a few pleasant surprises, one comes in the form of Yukio, played by the feisty Rila Fukushima. She's Logan's "bodyguard" which of course is cute.
The other surprises come in the form of Viper, played by the amazonian Svetlana Khodchenkova, who if you slapped a brunette wig on her, could definitely play Wonder Woman. Viper is vicious in this movie and she does something no one else has ever been able to do and that's weaken Logan to the point where he doesn't heal immediately. The other surprise is Famke Jansen, my original pick for Wonder Woman by the way, who reprises her role as Jean Grey. She visits Logan in his sleep and subtly tortures him about his killing her in the third (and worst) installment of the X-Men movies X-Men: Last Stand, directed by the INcompetent Brett Ratner. Unlike in Iron Man 3 where Tony Stark is an anxiety riddled mess, Logan is only confronted with his demons when he is asleep, which by the way is something NO one in The Avengers ever did, sleep or eat for that matter. It was nice to see a hero actually do something humans need to do. We also see a hero walk into a restroom, novel.
The Wolverine isn't going to alter the superhero genre in any way, but what it has done is it has put Wolverine back on it's tracks. Though the fighting sequence on top of the bullet train was amazing. The cinematography by Ross Emery was the perfect blend of campy and straightforward. When he puts you in Logan's shoes, it's artistically well done though much of the shooting was done in Australia, the production design and the cinematography did a very good job making you believe it was Japan. The score by Marco Beltrami was exquisite. Using traditional Japanese instruments throughout the score was a very nice touch. It wasn't over the top and held the right emotion content to help the story along. I highly recommend The Wolverine, just don't go in expecting to be blown away, but just know that it is WAY better than the last Wolverine picture. I'll see you at the theater.
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