‘The Wolverine’: Kickass telenovela

MANILA, Philippines – The last Wolverine movie is better forgotten. This flick fares better.

We’re promised a superhero movie, and with the presence of the brawling, angsty Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman taking on the role a fifth time, and looking like he can slip into it easily) we do sort of get that. But actually, it’s more melodrama or material for a telenovela.

That’s not entirely bad though, as it gives us a familiar tapestry, and then proceeds to play out the various threads.

Watch a featurette on Logan here:

You’ve got a dying patriarch, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), the head of not only a family but also a technological and business empire. Next in line to take over the family business is his son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), with whom he doesn’t get along. He doesn’t think the son worthy.

The patriarch wants to pass the business to his granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto).

Oh, this pleases Shingen not one bit. And Mariko’s rebellious nature doesn’t help either. Adding to the trouble is that she is betrothed to a high-ranking government official, Noburo (Brian Tee), a betrothal engineered by her father.

She used to love a boy she grew up with, Harada (Will Yun Lee), who is a ninja now, who is sworn to protect her because his clan is sworn to protect their family. He bears her betrothal and serves the family, despite still loving her.

Watch a featurette on Harada here:

So, yeah, tangled web of family intrigue and drama, high end distrust, plotting, power playing, and all that.

While all this is happening, a ward of the Yashida family, Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who is also a mutant and a pretty badass ninja-type herself, has been looking for Wolverine. He saved grandfather Yashida in WWII and now the old man wants to fulfill a vow that the two made then. And he has an offer for Wolverine.

What “The Wolverine” does then is take all of those conventions, the convoluted machinations of melodrama, and it throws Wolverine into it all. And, know what, it worked for me.

There’s a lot of drama and melodrama underlying it all – the most apparent being the crazy conflicts within and around the Yashida clan, and that’s really what generates all the action.

I’m thankful for it. I don’t normally go for this kind of story, but if it means that it will lead to Wolverine fighting the Yakuza, ninjas, and eventually the Silver Samurai, then I can get onboard.

Underpinning it all is Wolverine dealing with the aftermath of the events of X3. Probably the weakest film of the franchise (not counting the solo Wolverine flick), it eliminated Jean Grey and wasted the whole Phoenix story. Still, it put Wolverine where we find him, traumatized by the events, unable to move on, struggling to keep living with himself after he offed the woman he loved.

Watch a featurette onYukio here:

We see then that this movie has two goals. The first is to deliver a stand-alone Wolverine adventure. Marvel has been milking this cash cow for a long time now, putting Wolvie in various teams, spinning him off into a number of solo titles, and playing off of how interesting the character can be.

It’s a smart move then to let him have this solo flick that isn’t bound to the other movies. You can walk in and enjoy it on its own, and it’s light and self-contained and a fair bit of fun, if also inconsequential when you think of larger movements in the X-film-verse.

The second goal is dealing with Wolverine’s personal turmoil. It’s got to move him out of the woods where he’s living the life of a recluse, and bring him back into the fold so that he’s onboard for the next movie in the series.

On both counts, “The Wolverine” is successful. It’s an entertaining flick.

It does a number of things right. It provides us with an entertaining, if somewhat convoluted main story. One of the things being promoted about the film is that it de-powers Wolverine. It has him fighting without the advantage of his healing factor. It actually works more on the concept level than in the actual execution, but it provides a good conflict that the character has to deal with.

And it gives us a few very well executed action set-pieces. Early in the film we have Wolverine duking it out on the streets with the Yakuza while Harada snipes at them from rooftops with a bow and the whole staging is exciting. A brawl on the bullet train, lots of ninja fighting, and other good fight scenes make up for the kind of underwhelming ending fight.

This isn’t a great superhero flick by any means. There are some parts that are definitely cheesy. The reveal of the big bad at the end is laughable, predictable, and not much fun. But, hey, you can’t have it all.

“The Wolverine” is fun, light entertainment. It’s got some good action scenes, a lot of fun sequences, a pretty good sense of humor. Important to the franchise is that it shows that, despite the previous film’s failure, there’s a lot that can be done with this character, not only in the X-Men movies but with him going on his own adventures. 

Watch the trailer here: 

– Rappler.com

Carljoe Javier is at the faculty of English and Comparative Literature at UP. He is also an author, and among his books are The Kobayashi Maru of Love, the new edition of which is available from Visprint Inc. His upcoming Writing 30 will be available as an ebook at amazon, ibookstore, b&n and flipreads.com