Greetings fellow CBMers.
I just came back from the Cinema, after spending an evening with some nice people that joined me to watch The Wolverine. I gotta confess that the trailers and the marketing for this movie didn´t get me excited and that even the Japanese background did´t convince me to watch this movie. I spent my money on this movie because of some good reviews I read online, including some from this website.
I really love and admire japanese culture. I began taking seriously all the geek stuff because of my exposition to anime and manga in the late 90's. I spent several years reading about Japan and its culture and until this day I like to watch documentaries about the social, artistic and historic aspects of japanese society. I haven't been there myself, but I think that at least I have a basic knowledge about Japan.
Let's go straight to the movie: The Wolverine. If I have to pick a word to describe this movie, that word is: SILLY. It's a silly popcorn movie that doesn't take itself seriously. If you want to have a couple of laughs, don't know nothing about Japan, don't read comics, enjoy Hugh Jackman'shirtless scenes and think that he is the Ultimate Wolverine... probably you gave a good review to this movie.
In my case I found it so silly that I couldn't buy the story. I found myself laughing, cracking jokes and pointing out several mistakes as the movie went on. Whoever wrote this script doesn't know anything about Japan... they probably watched a couple of touristic documentaries about the country.
I know that a lot of people in the US are lazy and hate to read and a lot of US folks think that the United States is alone in the center of the Universe with other countries existing with the only purpose of worship the greatness of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Probably that's why the japanese people in this movie can't speak their own language in their own country and they have to explain or translate even the most logical things to the moviegoer, so all the folks in the US can understand what this weird asian people is talking about without the annoying subtitles... because reading is too much work. In my case I found this annoying and even offensive and racist.
For example, the scene at the Love Hotel was so utterily stupid that I can't even imagine how the japanese public will react to it. The Love Hotels are real and japanese people use them, however the are very discreet about their sex life. You can't show a princess raised and educated in one of the Elite families of Japan accepting to spend the night with a stranger in a Love Hotel. That was completely out of character... this girl was more like a School Girl that seduces old men to get expensive gifts, something the japanese know as Enjo-kōsai. Hugh Jackman could be very attractive to many women but Mariko was supposed to be corporate royalty and if they want me to take the character seriously, they shouldn't do stuff like this.
The Romance was so forced... people complain about Man of Steel but this movie takes the stupid romance to a whole new level... here all you need is a bath, some shaving and all of the sudden Logan becomes Japan's most eligible bachelor. Once again, Mariko was supposed to be a girl raised in a very strict, disiplined, conservative, wealthy japanese family... she is not a KoGal, a School Girl or an Otaku. Even she slept with Logan after a couple of days of meeting each other, despite the fact that she was already engaged to another man. This movie suffers some serious yellow fever.
The action scenes were so out of place. I am not against action, but they waisted a great opportunity to exploit the amazing photography of Tokyo and the japanese landscape. No creativity at all... even the Bullet Train sequence that so many online reviewers found so outstanding was mediocre. We had similar scenes at Mission Impossible and the recient James Bond movie Skyfall. Even Spiderman 2 had a better action sequence on a train. How the hell did Logan got back into the bullet train?
Also the Ninjas were so over the top, I found myself laughing out loud at the screen. The last part of the movie was a disaster... Why recent Marvel frachises can't have a decent villian in a movie? You may reply that Loki is awesome, but Loki is more a Fan Girl favorite than a scary villian.
I guess that all it matters in the end is the Box Office, because a movie is not good if it doesn't make a profit. Then The Wolverine must be a good CBM, if you follow that logic. However if you expect something else than silly entertaiment, if you want a filmmaker trying something different with a well known and beloved character... The Wolverine is not the movie you are looking for. It's on the same level as Wolverine Origins, the main difference is that few people know and care about the japanese characters in the movie or the comics.
Watching the online reviews I can tell that many people that follow these Super Hero movies don't read comics, like in Football, they take a team (Dc or Marvel) and cheer for whatever they do... using the Box Office results as the Score Card to define which is the best team. That is the Marketing Department job... but the fans have taken over the fight to beat the other team's bank account.
I guess that CBMs are getting to a point where the filmmakers begin to be lazy and scripts get repetitive and the studios just hope that the franchise keep making money because people will see the movie no matter how bad it is. Of course this happens with successful franchises like Wolverine or Spider-man... to start a new franchise the studio and the production team must take some risks and probably that's why they hesitate so much.
I will save my money and wait until the next big nice surprise. Sadly there weren't any nice surprises this summer.
Thanks for reading.