Thursday, 30 April 2009
Wolverine Rising….or is this Wolverine Sinking? Does this kitten have claws?
You know the cool thing about Superheroes? You know nothing about ‘em. That’s the mystery. They just ARE. Metal claws, teleportation, instant healing, the ability to fly.. al that stuff. Its fantastical. And Magical. But you know all that angst? The anger, the loathing, the pain? The bitterness, the self disgust, the tortured existence? Well, lets leave that sort of stuff for movies by Ken Loach starring Paddy Constantine, stuck in a council towerblock while it rains endlessly outside and all there is to eat is mouldy bread and tesco value baked beans.
Or lets not. How about we go half and half? How about a equal measure of pyrotechnics, motorbikes, superpowers mixed in with misery, soul searching, and familial breakdown. A Sort of Nil By Mutant, really. Aha, sounds like a blast.
On the other hand, the only blast here might be exploding helicopters and disintergrating power stations. You see, it sounds flippant and obvious, but you go to see the Superhero movies to see them do superhero stuff. You don’t go to the Superhero movie expecting the angsty scrawlings of a mucked up middle aged man, who just happens to have a metal skeleton. As you do.
And there, fundamentally is the problem of Wolverine ; its neither and yet both at the same time. Huge, epic, setpieces with bad looking CGI mixed in with scenes of loneliness and loss. From the Steven Seagal-esque retreat of a lone pine cabin in the Canadian rockies, at one with his own nature [and presumably fighting the ecological terrors of Michael Caine and a fake hairpiece in the deleted scenes], we see Wolverine from his early years 150 years ago. Hmm, What is he, some kind of Immortal? Next thing you know, they’ll be decapitating each other with swords Highlander style. (Oh, hang on, you thought I was makign that bit up right?)
Starting with Wolverine as a boy, unable to control his anger and killing his own family only to go forever on the run, to serving in the US military across the First World war to the beaches of Normandy, we see Logan joined up with a supersecret squad with special privileges, made up on others with special powers. From a disasterous mission in Africam to his self imposed exile in Canada, it all comes crashing in when his sadistic stepbrother – Sabretooth – suddenly reappears hellbent on vengeance. And following the death of his beloved, Logan makes the choice to turn against his own. No matter the cost. No matter how painful. But its all part of the plan….
However, Wolverine is a grounds up reinvention for the character ; set long before now, going back a couple of decades – though it is never exactly clear when – it sets up the world we see the existing X Men films. However, it has plot holes of an unbelieveable size, cheap and fake looking effects – the CGI blades in particular are spectcularly unimpressive, and the power station finale seems to have all the gravity of videogame cutscene .
The tone is often wildly uneven and disparate – bites of humour next to soul crushing angst, spectacular but unconvincing action scenes next to the burden of being the beast – is such that it often undoes the redeeming features of the film. And especially the boss monster of the end, the mysterious Weapon XI comes across as an bland, characterless unconvincing teleporting indestructible Friday the 13th-esque super killer in the style of Jason Vorhees, without the charm, wit, charisma or interest.
Not that there aren’t some redeeming features – Ryan Reynolds bit part cameo as Wade Wilson, the sidecracking martial arts expert blow practically everyone else off screen, and it makes you wish they’d just given him a beard and a film of his own ; he was by far the best thing in otherwise risible Blade:Trinity, and here he similarly shines. Liev Schreiber is primal and meancing as a barely restrained, animalistic but sarcastic Sabretooth who gets the best line of the film – and the young Cylops is almost perfectly cast. Also of note is the actor they get to play Stryker in Danny Huston. But to be honest, casting aside, this is where everything else falls down. The effects are often rushed, shoddy and cheap looking, with insubstantial gravity and bad CGI. The ending is hiding in plain sight, and this film looks so very, very different to any of the other Xmen films its as if it lives in a different universe. Needless flashbacks in grainy black and white, rustic hypersaturated colours and it even homages a supermutant remake of First Blood for five minutes, with a battlescarred ex-soldier on the run from authority on a stolen motorbike whilst being shot at. So far, so 1982. And the fight in the alleyway with the fanpleasing cameo of the wishy-washy charmless Gambit leads to a fight in a backstreet that’s so much like Big Trouble In little China,Its only missign the Ninja’s. And if there’s one thing all films need more of, its Ninja’s. 
Except for the balance sheet of 20th Century Fox, there was no need to make this. No need at all. Part of the reason we like our Superheroes is that we do not need to know where they have comefrom - that way, we can always fantasize that one Day it could be us. To humanize them, is to De-Superheroize them. In fact, if anything this film resembles Alien:Ressurrection or –more accuratley – the pointless Hannibal Rising. Where the similarly oscar winning talent outweighs the source material, and you can’t make majesty out of matchsticks. The humanises the demon, removes their mythos, and make a man out of a monster. And that robs him of his mystery, and his power.
You see, that what made Hannibal lecter so scary. No explanation. Its what you don’t know that gives you the mystery, the not knowing. And here you knwo everything. And that mystery is gone.
It’s a slim, insubstantial story that gives away too much, abandons the comic book its based on wherever possible, and is simultaneously too lightweight (vis a vise, the ending seems like outtakes from the sublime Jason X) and also too angsty for its own good. Patchy and inconsistent, terribly paced with little spectacle, too unbelievable for its own good and with action scenes devoid of tension or build up, Wolverine is that most unneccessary of things: a film that didn’t need to be made, with a story that didn’t need to be told, but a cash till that needs to be kept ringing.
Wolverine Rising? Wolverine sinking more like. First misfire of the summer. Only registered users can write comments.
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