X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

The Wolverine was one of those films that you go into hoping it will be good, but have a low standard of what “good” is. Because you do this, you actually enjoy the film.

If you go in expecting this to stick to canon, you’re going to be disappointed from the start. But that’s something we’ve come to expect, even from the Marvel movies, canon gets changed around to better suit the medium and more modern settings. Was there anything in The Wolverine that was unforgivable? On the whole, no, but the fact that it was so predictable is highly disappointing. Much like in Iron Man 3, they changed around who The Silver Samurai is/was. But the Mandarin’s change came completely out of left field and was as amazingly creative as it was controversial. The twist in Wolverine you see coming from about twenty minutes into the movie.

And at one point I thought this film might actually do something different for once. Make Wolvie a real anti-hero and leave him without hooking up with the love interest and truly left like a Ronin by the end, albeit one who finds his own purpose which would be very deep and existential. That would have been awesome, and very much in line with the old Westerns and Samurai films this film was a homage to, but instead the love story is as typical as we’ve seen a thousand times.

That was really this films biggest problem, it was too safe. Yes, that meant that you’re so glad it wasn’t the horrible mess that was X3 and X:O:W, but that’s basically saying after trying all those wax and saw dust flavored jelly beans you’re pleased when you get a red liquorish.

Does that necessarily make it a bad movie? No. The train fight scene was pretty spectacular, plus they played around a bit with the things Wolvie could do with his claws. It was a darker film and definitely more on par with what Wolverine should be. If it actually tried to push the limits more in the story it was trying to tell (and more straight on ninja/Wolvie fighting), then it could have been beyond Epic, it was that close.

Instead, the ending kinda falls flat and really leaves you to wonder ‘why is he doing this’ except, you know, he has to be freed up for Days of Future Past.

Overall though, it’s a decent film which makes up for X:O:W and leaves us with a wonderful little after-credits scene to hook into DOFP. Yukio and Mariko were decently kick ass and Jean’s cameo wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, so that was nice to be surprised (I choose to believe that last scene was a homage to the White Hot Room).

So yeah, go see The Wolverine, just make sure that when you walk in, don’t expect a Rembrandt, and be glad it’s not a finger-paint.

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