The Wolverine (2013) Review

Time: 126 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence & offensive language
Cast:
Hugh Jackman as Logan
Tao Okamoto as Mariko
Rila Fukushima as Yukio
Hiroyuki Sanada as Shingen
Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper
Brian Tee as Noburo
Haruhiko Yamanouchi as Yashida
Will Yun Lee as Harada
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey
Director: James Mangold

Logan (Hugh Jackman) travels to Tokyo to meet Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), an old acquaintance who is dying. The situation regresses when Yashida offers to take away his healing abilities, but Logan refuses.

The Wolverine was one of my least watched X-Men movies, and I’m not sure why considering that I liked it quite a lot. I decided to revisit it and I thought it was really good, even better than I remembered. It definitely has some unfortunate issues that hold it back from being great, but I really enjoyed it for what it was.

First of all, it is worth noting that I watched the Unleashed Edition of the movie, which is rated R. It adds back in some of the violence, language and additional scenes that were cut from the theatrical version. I don’t think I’ve seen the theatrical cut but honestly, I think that this is the definitive version of the film. So make sure to watch this version of the movie. The Wolverine is the second of the solo Wolverine movies, but instead of being a prequel like X-Men Origins Wolverine was, it serves as a continuation from the original X-Men trilogy. One of the most surprising things is that it does something with the aftermath of X-Men: The Last Stand instead of avoiding it completely and it works to put the character in the right frame of mind he needed to be in for this story to be told. The Wolverine is a darker, lower scale and lower stakes comic book movie, especially considering the previous X-Men movies. The number of actual mutants in the movie is very minimal, but it works to its advantage. The smaller scale of the movie allows for greater characterisation, in fact it’s at its strongest when it is focusing on the more human elements. The past X-Men movies portrayed Logan as being a bit tame, but here he’s very much a broken and haunted man. This story really humanised Wolverine and goes in depth, working as a character study. We see a guilt ridden Logan struggling with his burden of immortality, and I really liked where the film went with him. The movie even finds way to make him vulnerable despite his regeneration ability. I also thought the way they worked Jean Grey into Wolverine’s story was well done, and an admirable choice considering The Last Stand was hated by many people. The Wolverine starts off very well with a great opening, focusing on a World War 2 flashback with Logan right in the middle of it. Most of the movie throws Logan into modern Japan, which serves as a very unique setting which I liked seeing. The story is consistently intriguing and keeps things moving over its 2-hour runtime. I liked seeing how everything progressed. Despite it being a dark story, it does have moments of levity while not feeling cheesy. Where the movie really suffers is when it gets into its last act. That’s when it makes the sharp turn into a generic and typical comic book movie climax with much larger action set pieces, feeling rather out of place to what came before. It becomes cartoonish and comic booky, and unfortunately not in a good way. Not only that, but some significant reveals are rushed and underdeveloped. I still found some enjoyment in this segment, but it definitely brought down the movie. There’s a mid credits scene that is worth sticking around for, as it links directly into X-Men Days of Future Past.

For the most part, the acting is really good. This is one of Hugh Jackman’s best performances as Wolverine, second best only behind Logan. Wolverine as a character is greatly developed here, far more than what the character was in earlier X-Men movies. In The Wolverine, he’s introspective and remorseful, and Jackman is superb here. It was quite compelling watching his journey throughout the film. The other actors are quite good, Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima are particularly great in their parts, though I wish the latter had gotten more screentime. The villains do have issues and feel a little weak. I do admire that most of the antagonists feel very human and are mostly decently developed, but they still aren’t nearly developed enough. My favourite of them is Hiroyuki Sanada’s character, though that might’ve had something to do with the performance more than the role. The one villain I’ll say is straight up bad is that of Viper, a mutant with toxin powers played by Svetlana Khodchenkova. Her character didn’t make much sense, and she’s very out of place in this movie, like she belonged in a different X-Men movie with a very different tone.

The movie definitely benefits strongly from James Mangold’s direction here. The cinematography is slick, I loved the Japanese setting in the movie and it provided plenty of opportunities for some stunning shots and locations. While the action is pretty sparse, there are some great action sequences with some top-notch stunt work. The highlights for me was one involving a bullet train, and another involving a surgery. As I said earlier, the Unrated version has a real punchiness and impact, along with some added blood. I feel like the action would be toned down in the theatrical version, yet another reason to go with the unrated version. The action in the third act was still entertaining, but not as good as the first two acts. I didn’t really care much for the extensive use of CGI, and it’s much more over the top. However, the action in the first two acts are some of the best action in the whole franchise. The Marco Beltrami score is also great, and really added a lot to the movie.

I wouldn’t quite say that The Wolverine one of the best X-Men movies, but I think it’s a really good movie nonetheless. I liked the darker tone and the character driven approach, which focuses more on itself than the wider X-Men world. It really is just the third act where it falls apart. While I still found enjoyment in it, it does hold the film back from being great. Of course, James Mangold would take these elements of Wolverine and to deliver a much better movie in Logan, but I still think The Wolverine is worth another look.

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Goldeneye (1995) Review

Time: 130 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Pierce Brosnan as James Bond (007)
Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan (006)/Janus
Izabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova
Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp
Joe Don Baker as Jack Wade
Judi Dench as M
Gottfried John as General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov
Robbie Coltrane as Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky
Alan Cumming as Boris Grishenko
Director: Martin Campbell

When a powerful satellite system falls into the hands of Alec Trevelyan, AKA Agent 006 (Sean Bean), a former ally-turned-enemy, only James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) can save the world from an awesome space weapon that — in one short pulse — could destroy the earth! As Bond squares off against his former compatriot, he also battles Trevelyan’s stunning ally, Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), an assassin who uses pleasure as her ultimate weapon.

I have watched most of the James Bond films (even though I don’t seem to remember most of them) however there were a few I haven’t watched: From Russia with Love, Goldeneye and Never Say Never Again (and the Jerry Lewis Casino Royale if you want to count that as a Bond film). Goldeneye has been called one of the best James Bond movies and having finally seen it, I can see why that is. I’ll be honest, the James Bond films don’t really do much for me, even though I do like most of them. It’s only the Daniel Craig era that has great James Bond movies (and really only 2 of them are great). Goldeneye has the typical tropes, clichés and structure of typical Bond films but it does the best with those aspects. Martin Campbell does deliver an entertaining flick that works really well.

The movie is set after the Cold War era (with it being the first Bond movie made after the end of the Cold War) and the film fully embraces that time period. The opening scene starts off the movie well, it’s simple and straightforward and completely Bondlike. From that point onwards, it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a Bond movie. The movie has much of the same structure and tropes as most Bond films. However, when it comes to James Bond movies this is one of the better ones and it does rather well with it. You don’t get very invested in the story plot but its straightforward and easy to follow, easy to be entertained by. The movie is 2 hours and 10 minutes and the pacing does work quite well, it’s always moving in some way and doesn’t give you a chance to draw bored at any point. You’re generally entertained throughout.

Goldeneye is Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as the new James Bond after Timothy Dalton’s two film run. His version is a lot more charismatic and charming than all the other James Bonds’ and Brosnan really excels at that aspect. I don’t really buy him as a spy as much as the other James Bonds but he’s still pretty entertaining to watch. The ‘Bond Girl’ of Goldeneye is played by Izabella Scorupco, and I can’t really tell if she’s a good actor or not because her character once again falls into the typical Bond girl category of not really having anything to them as a character. You never really buy the relationship between her and Bond, but I guess it’s kind of something to look past because it’s a Bond movie. Sean Bean plays the villain of Alec Trevelyan, a former double 00 agent gone rogue. Though the character really isn’t anything special (a rogue agent in a spy isn’t really anything special), he does serve the movie really well, and Bean does play up his villainous role and is entertaining. Famke Janssen also does well as Xenia Onatopp (yes, that’s the character’s name). However the character is a little too over the top, with her trademark kill being crushing people with her thighs and there are even times when she is literally moaning with pleasure after killing people. It just comes across as being really goofy more than anything, and that’s saying a lot considering the James Bond movies as a whole. While in a smaller role, M this time is played by Judi Dench, who would do a fantastic job in both the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig Bond eras. She’s only given a couple scenes here but she makes the most of these scenes to make a real impression. Alan Cumming is in this movie as a Russian hacker and while I get the feeling that his character is meant to be over the top, I think it was a little too over the top.

Martin Campbell starts off this new version of James Bond (not the first time he’d do this, see a decade later with Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale) and he does a great job. Campbell particularly does very well with the action scenes, with a lot of practical effects along with the digital effects. The fight scenes are great, especially the final confrontation between James and Alec, Bond actually seemed like he was somewhat in danger. There’s also some large scale and entertaining action sequences, including one with Bond chasing people in a tank. Some visual effects like blue lightning, satellites and some explosions look fake now but they probably worked greatly for 1995. The score by Éric Serra is different and stands apart from the other Bond scores, it really works.

Goldeneye is one of the best James Bond movies for sure. It’s very much a Bond film and has many of the familiar aspects and formula, but its really entertaining. Much of the success goes to Martin Campbell, who did a great job directing this movie and introducing a new James Bond with Pierce Brosnan. If you like the James Bond movies but haven’t gotten around to Goldeneye (which was me until recently), I’d suggest watching it, it’s a lot of fun.

X-Men The Last Stand (2006) Review

Time: 104 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Famke Janssen as Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix
Anna Paquin as Marie/Rogue
Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast
James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkhölme/Mystique
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce/Pyro
Vinnie Jones as Cain Marko/Juggernaut
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X
Director: Brett Ratner

The discovery of a cure for mutations leads to a turning point for Mutants (Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Kelsey Grammer). They may now choose to give up their powers and become fully human or retain their uniqueness and remain isolated. War looms between the followers of Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who preaches tolerance, and those of Magneto (Ian McKellen), who advocates survival of the fittest.

X Men: The Last Stand has gotten the reputation of being the worst X Men movie and I think that’s a little ridiculous (X-Men: Origins Wolverine was clearly much worse). But even if it is one of the worse X-Men movies, it’s still not as bad as many others are making it out to be. The main flaw was aspects of the story and direction, it could’ve been so much more and Bryan Singer’s absence can be definitely noticed. However I still think there’s still enough aspects that make it an above average movie.

One thing that this film does is raise the stakes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. An example of the latter is when the film does kill off characters, I’ve noticed a lot of complaints are aimed towards those moments. While I didn’t feel anything when these deaths happened (which is probably a flaw in the X Men movies as a whole), these deaths felt unnecessary. I guess it was because Fox thought that this would be the last X Men movie, so they tried to raise the stakes. But it felt so forced and unnecessary. A big complaint that many had was the execution of the Phoenix storyline, as I haven’t read the comics I don’t really know the differences. So I can’t really comment on that. I will say that I thought it was fine but it didn’t reach its fullest potential. The final act of the movie is a big mutants against mutants fight and I personally thought that was enjoyable to see.

The cast was again good in their role, with Hugh Jackman of course stealing the show. Some of the additions to the cast were great, for example I loved what they did with Kelsey Grammer’s Beast. One flaw that I have acknowledged was the fact that so many new mutants are introduced and nothing is done with them. Vinnie Jones for example plays the Juggernaut, he was really entertaining (in a funny way, not in a badass way) in his 2 scenes but didn’t add anything. Ben Foster’s Angel didn’t do much either, his character was in the first scene of the movie but he’s only in a few scenes.

The special effects are as usual good, they are on the same level as the other X Men movies. Even if you don’t like the movie, there’s no denying that there are many visually great moments. One example is in the final act involving the Golden Gate Bridge. The final action scenes was great and after seeing small groups of mutants fighting other groups of mutants (or in the case of X2, human soldiers) it felt so exciting and refreshing to see a great mutant on mutant war.

I don’t really get a whole lot of the hate for X Men 3. Sure it doesn’t hold up to the previous movies but it still holds up as a decent movie. The action is still good, the actors do reasonably well and I liked aspects of the direction in the story. The main flaw is in the story, there are so many parts of the movie that could’ve been improved. I felt like Brett Ratner might’ve been the main flaw, Bryan Singer skipped this movie for Superman Returns (great choice by the way), and given Ratner’s track record, it’s easy to see why this movie would fail. The Last Stand is by no means a great movie but it isn’t a bad movie either.

X2: X Men United (2003) Review

Time: 134 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier/Professor X
Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine
Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm
Famke Janssen as Dr. Jean Grey
James Marsden as Scott Summers/Cyclops
Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme/Mystique
Brian Cox as Col. William Stryker
Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler
Bruce Davison as Sen. Robert Kelly
Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake/Iceman
Aaron Stanford as John Allerdyce/Pyro
Kelly Hu as Yuriko Oyama/Lady Deathstrike
Anna Paquin as Marie/Rogue
Director: Bryan Singer

After the events on Liberty Island, everyone at Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) School for Gifted Youngsters is settling in. Magneto (Ian McKellen) is locked up in a plastic cell, Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore) have finally gotten together, and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has set off to find his origins. But it won’t stay quiet for long. After a mutant attack on the President, everyone starts to fear any type of mutant. William Stryker (Brian Cox), who plans to stop all mutants, takes over the school, causing Wolverine and his team of mutants to go into hiding. Stryker has managed to capture Xavier and will use him to create another version of Cerebro. Wolverine and the team must now team up with their enemy, Magneto, to stop Stryker before it’s too late.

X Men was a pretty good movie and was one of the movies that brought back the superhero genre. Director Bryan Singer returns to deliver an even better X Men movie. With more characters, more development of the characters and a plot which isn’t just a rehash of the original, X Men 2 proves to be even better than the original. It’s still not the best X Men movie but it is the best of the original trilogy.

I really liked the aspect of the X Men teaming up with Magneto, it would be so easy just to have them as enemies for the sequel but this time around it gives us something different. I also liked the pacing better here, while I did like the previous X Men, after watching it again I noticed that the pacing was a little slower, now that the characters are (mostly) established I think Singer could afford to have a faster pace. This also meant that more of the characters could be developed (at least a little bit). Once of the main criticisms of the first film was that aside from some characters (such as Wolverine, Rogue and Magneto) most of the characters were underdeveloped. Although I can’t call all of them fully developed (Especially Cyclops and Mystique) the film at least showed more aspects of them.

All the actors from the previous movie return and once again are good in their roles, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and the rest of the cast are really good but Hugh Jackman as usual steals the show as Wolverine, it’s hard imagining anyone else in his role. Brian Cox I thought did a pretty good job as the main villain, who has a lot of history with Wolverine. Alan Cumming Nightcrawler was a nice addition to the X Men, I’m actually surprised that he didn’t return for the sequel. As I said before, more of the characters are given more depth and I started to like them more, with the exception of Cyclops who doesn’t show up a lot in the movie.

The action scenes once again are well filmed and there are much more of them as there is much more going on in the story. Highlights of the film for me were the opening scenes with Nightcrawler and the fight scenes between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike at the end of the movie. The soundtrack again was really good and added to the movie.

X Men 2 is for me a better movie than the original X Men. That film was a good set up to the X Men, while X Men 2 was a great X Men movie. It’s still not the best X Men movie but it’s the best X Men film of the original trilogy. It has the best action scenes, it has the best story and it used the characters the best. It’s not a perfect movie, looking back at it not all of the characters are fully developed but it is an improvement over the first film.

Taken 3 (2015) Review

Time: 109 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence and Offensive Language
Cast:
Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills
Forest Whitaker as Inspector Frank Dotzler
Maggie Grace as Kim Mills
Famke Janssen as Lenore Mills-St. John
Dougray Scott as Stuart St. John
Sam Spruell as Oleg Malankov
Leland Orser as Sam Gilroy
Director: Olivier Megaton

Liam Neeson returns as ex-covert operative Bryan Mills, whose long awaited reconciliation with his ex-wife is tragically cut short when she is brutally murdered. Consumed with rage, and framed for the crime, he goes on the run to evade the relentless pursuit of the CIA, FBI and the police. For one last time, Mills must use his “particular set of skills,” to track down the real killers, exact his unique brand of justice, and protect the only thing that matters to him now – his daughter.

Taken was a really good action thriller released in 2008 and it launched Liam Neeson’s action career. Even though I watched Taken 2 I can’t remember how it was, but judging by how it was received, I probably wouldn’t like it if I re-watched it. The director of that film returns to this movie (odd choice) to deliver us the concluding chapter to the Taken Trilogy. Taken 3 is terrible as an action movie, a thriller, and as a movie in general. The plot is convoluted and a mess and the action is so messy and incomprehensible. We all probably saw it coming with the director of Taken 2 returning but it is still painful to see Liam Neeson wasted in a bad action movie.

This movie is basically a bad version of The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford, the wife is killed and the husband is accused of murder and tries to find the murderer while dodging a highly skilled cop. The plot is so loosely stringed together and that led to many plot holes and conveniences. For example I never got how Liam Neeson was instantly framed as soon as he was discovered with his ex-wife’s body. It wasn’t like there was any hard evidence to prove it, it felt like the script was supposed to show a detail but it was left out. The plot is also very predictable, I was able to pick out the main villain within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Another thing to note is that Liam Neeson is basically a god in this movie. Even though in the original he was strong, you felt that he could be hurt badly. Here he’s pretty much invincible. In many ways this movie reminds me of Die Hard 5. They both have convoluted plots, terrible action and unstoppable main characters.

Liam Neeson is good in the movie, and when he has to act, he does a good job. Forrest Whitaker was also good, even though he was pretty much Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive, he was too good of an actor to be in this movie. Famke Jensen and Maggie Grace do fine. Generally the acting is fine, which probably means it’s probably the best part of the movie but it’s not saying a lot.

The action in Taken 3 is some of the worst action I’ve seen in a movie. There are so many cuts that happen in the action scenes that it’s often incomprehensible. I tried finding a shot that lasted 2 seconds long but it wasn’t there. There’s a scene where Neeson climbs over a fence and it used 7 shots to show it, not kidding. Also a lot of the action (and all the fight scenes) are done in close up, so I couldn’t understand what was going on. It becomes extremely frustrating as you try to figure out what is going on in these scenes.

Taken 3 is a terrible movie, if you haven’t seen the original, just watch that and skip 2 and 3. The plot was a mess, the action was awful and it was just a bad version of The Fugitive. I really felt that if Taken was to have sequels, it should’ve revolved around other characters, not Neeson’s family. The main focus of this movie wasn’t a kidnapping, so I don’t know why its part of a franchise called Taken. If you liked Taken, you should probably stay away from this movie and watch some of Neeson’s other action films as substitutes, they work a lot better than this movie.