It’s Comic-con season and a lot of stuff is being announced like an abundance of surprises and most especially trailers. Now, since Iron Man 2 just finished shooting and probably won’t be showing a trailer at Comic-Con, Marvel has something else up their sleeve. It looks like Marvel is tapping into the Anime scene with various popular characters like Iron Man and Wolverine. Watch the trailers and see if they fancy your geekbone.

Personally, I prefer the Iron Man trailer. Not just because I’m a huge Iron Man fan, but because the Anime look has always worked well anything mechanical or armor related. Giving Wolverine the whole Samurai treatment felt off even if Wolverine did spend a lot of time wielding a sword in Japan. The huge turn-off in the Wolverine Anime was the appearance of Mystical creatures. Also, Wolverine’s attire just looks too silly in my opinion. It felt more like an Anime that was ripping off the whole Wolverine look. If Marvel is going with this, the Wolverine Anime seems disappointing since Anime has always treated violence artistically. The Wolverine Anime is turning out to be just a hack and slash Anime which are the types that could get boring if it wasn’t supported by a great story.

I wasn’t expecting this.

I wasn’t expecting to be so disappointed with a movie that’s about one of my favorite comic book characters of all time, Wolverine.

I’ve been a fan of Logan since I was around 10 years old. I really liked his personality of being a mentor (to Jubilee), a protector, and a being of great rage. Yet, all of these are because of his one weakness. His amnesia, the loss of his memory rendered him to become so bitter and lonely. He needed something to occupy his mind and that’s why he fights. He fights to remember. He fights to find out why he is who he is.

Story

Like I said, changes from source material are okay for me as long as they keep the atmosphere and the character intact. Changes like plots, events and appearances are unavoidable since spandex costumes and violent events can never really look good on film sometimes.

The story starts with Wolverine, referred to as James, manifesting his powers at puberty. The story goes on showing the number of wars Logan and Victor (aka Sabertooth) went through. Now, this is where it all began. The introduction of the film never really showed much of how they both knew that they had a mutant healing factor. The claws yes, but how in the world did they know they won’t die in a war? So, initially I forgave that and continued to at least appreciate what happens next.

What happens next? They got recruited into a special forces group consisting of mutants and an impossibly hyper accurate human. I’m not even talking about Deadpool here. Anyway, it was a violent yet “okay” sequence to show the skills and powers of this special force. In fact, it was only Deadpool who made this scene a real joy to watch. Too bad, that was it for good action scenes.

Wolverine decides to leave since he doesn’t like all the violence that the group does. I was thinking, “What?”. You don’t like seeing innocents being killed but you went through around 4 wars killing anything in your way? I’m amazed he didn’t like the killing. Fine, he was killing enemy soldiers then and not civilians. But his decision to leave was because he had “enough”? I don’t think the next parts of the film justifies his reason.

So, 6 years later we see Wolverine with a woman. This is where the disaster begins. There was no exposition at all to introduce the woman. In fact, it kinda looked like Wolverine just picked her up from the street while drunk with his favorite drink, beer. I would have forgiven the movie without the woman’s introduction but sadly, the movie failed to show their chemistry as a couple.

Anyway, so something happens (I’m sure you predicted that already), so Wolverine goes on a rage to get his revenge. He finds out the truth behind it all and wait there’s a twist! A twist that was fine at first but later on, Logan’s actions just makes it all, stupid.

Don’t get me started with the “final boss”. Yes, just like a videogame. So, you’re thinking what could possibly be Wolverine’s greatest challenge? A man with mutant healing factor? A mutant with bigger claws? A mutant with Adamantium skin? Or maybe the girl with an Adamantium heart? One thing’s for sure, the final boss is a rip-off. I felt — cheated.

The way the movie revealed how he got his amnesia was probably the most stupid idea I’ve ever seen. Clearly, this movie was made for 6 year old kids who think large 7 inch blades are safe toys to play with.

Acting

I don’t blame the director much for how this film became a disaster. The actor’s performances were great. Hugh Jackman did a great job being Logan. Liev Schreiber as always does great performances. But as Sabertooth, he felt really over the top with all those “Animal leaps”. I don’t know if it’s really Liev that decided on that, the director or probably the executives from Fox. Danny Huston was really okay for me. But the guy who steals the show even if he only appeared for 5 minutes is Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson was a great homage to the “Merc with a mouth”. Lynn Collins as Silverfox though was a bit underwhelming compared to the others. Heck, even Will i Am did a better job than her.

Cinematography

The film shines based on the visuals alone. I’m not talking about special effects here. I’m talking about the props, some of the action scenes and the overall mood of the film was good. The composition of the scenes was great especially that chase sequence at the school was well done that those were one of the few parts I felt I was watching a good film.

Visual Effects

Action movies need great visual effects, right? Guess what, they’re incredibly mediocre in this film. There was a scene in the film with Logan looking at his claws in the mirror. That was one of the worst visual effects I’ve seen in a hollywood movie for a long time. Also, the wiring stunts and explosions felt so fake that you know most of them are computer generated.

The final battle scene actually felt like a videogame. Why was it really action packed? Was it intense? No. It was because it felt so fake.

Overall

The film had its good moments. But if those moments were put together with abysmal dialogue and disgusting visual effects to form a ridiculous plot, you got yourself a winner. A winner of one of the worst superhero movies of all time.

I came to watch this movie with really low expectations. I believe my expectations weren’t low enough.

I give this movie  1 out of 5 stars

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars