Watched The Wolverine. I was expecting a couple of hours of turning off my brain and enjoying some guilty pleasure, but it just wasn't it. Pacific Rim will be my next shot.
It's a shame that The Wolverine is PG 13. That restriction forced a vanilla character when he should be a modern-day Geralt. But no, we want more money, so let's not make the fights as brutal as you might expect from a feral mutant with claws in his flailing fists. I like to think that I'm not after violence for violence's sake, but it seems to fit Wolverine. I also wanted to see more sass from him, but I have a suspicion Hugh Jackman is getting bored of the role. He was just so subdued throughout the film as if he was waiting for it to be over. Playing it safe until the credits roll.
This character needs an overhaul. Hollywood guys are lazy and they keep focusing over, and over, and over, on his claws, and his regeneration. That's it. I want to see the wild side of him. Isn't that what he's about? The whole "wolverine" idea? Someone so chaotic it's usually hard to tell whether he's good or bad? Instead he's just being reduced to a paladin with a ragged look. And why aren't his bestial-senses ever put to use? The only instance I remember them really getting the spotlight was when he saw - or, well, smelled through Mystique's guise in the first X-Men movie. Since then, it feels as if the movie producers went all "Fuck it, just have him cut shit all the time".
I'm beginning to think Jackman's best portrayal of Wolverine was in his 5 seconds cameo in X-Men: First Class, when Xavier and Magneto walk up to him at the bar, introduce themselves, and he just answers "Go fuck yourselves" drily without even looking at them. Not a fuck was given.
So much wasted potential.
