It is weekend and this is the best time for me to do some catch up with the recent movie, The Wolverine. Most of you might have watched it by now and that is the purpose of this blog; so you know what am I referring to in the movie. Normally, I will use the implied story of a movie as part of my discussion in the class: my philosophy of learning = E+E (Education + Entertainment).
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| Well, at least they managed to promote Audi's brand in the world of Marvel Comics! |
The Wolverine 2013 is a movie that continue to tell the story of an X-Men, Logan the Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman) under the Marvel Comics franchise. Directed by James Mangold, this movie is about an old acquaintance of Logan, Yashida trying to gain immortality by attempting to transfer Logan's Mutated DNA to his weak and dying body. Very obvious, Yashida is the bad guy in this movie. Wolverine is not fighting his all-time enemy Sabretooth this time, but a lethal silver samurai steel.
The plot of this movie doesn't not relate to X-Men but more focusing on Wolverine as a single superhero, with his sidekick Yukio (played by Rila Fukushima): another mutant who can see 'some' future. So, I don't really feel like I am watching a Marvel superheroes movie. On top of the self-healing and classic blades from fist, Logan seems to be very human in this movie (especially when he was infected by a bio-robotic don't know what machine by the Viper).
Just because of that, I find the story-line a bit boring and predictable. It is mixing the plot on family business, politics, romantics, personal psychology and action. It portraits a typical 3 generations Japanese (Asian) family owned business in Tokyo, Japan which trying to create political ties, strengthening the corporation, and fighting for power and money; and not to forget, Ninja and Samurai and World War II. On the other hand, the stories tries to explain Logan's inner psychology and promoting his romantic love story with the pretty Japanese model Tao Okamoto, who played Mariko, the grandchild of Yashida. Meanwhile, the movie attempts to reflect the selfishness of human who wanted the immortality, even by sacrificing the family and friends. Meanwhile, the director is trying to bring out the charisma of Wolverine by making Yukio to admire him.
Sounds like a lot? Yes, it is really too many messages that the movie is trying to package it in. Well, that's quite worth it if you are paying for a piece of entertainment, but you may easily forget about this movie. To me, nothing seems to connect, sorry...even though I am a fan of X-Men and to Marvel's superheroes.
I would rate this movie 5 out of 10. They have good cast but the story-line was like for the sake of making another Wolverine movie.
