The Wolverine: still far from sugo-i!

I was not a loyal fan of Marvel comics since I convert to manga many years ago. Still, I had learnt enough to get upset at what they had done with X-Men franchise. The first movie was good, subsequent ones bombed. Then they decide to squeeze the franchise and came up with X-men origins Wolverine and that was definitely an abomination. Look at how they portrayed Gambit or Deadpool. (Come on, this is Gambit we are talking about). The good news is The Wolverine this year is better than the first one.


Good news. Hugh Jackman is really good as Wolverine. The only other actor which seems to fit the character nicely is Patrick Stewart as Prof X (not just the lack of hair). He did his job and boy, does he really worked out. The other actresses was average at most. Tao Okamoto as Mariko is sweet in her own ways. Rila Fukushima, on the other hand, felt comfortable is certain scenes but was really awkward in others.

The story is simple, Yashida was a man Logan saved many many years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Now, before he takes his last breath as he was dying from medical illness, he seek out Logan to say good bye and offer him mortality. Now, things will not look like what they seems. In the process, Yashida's granddaughter Mariko got targeted by the yakuza and Logan was dragged into the whole affair.

This is rather a good attempt to inject some layers to the complexity of Wolverine's character and personality. The whole show want us to believe that beside his animal side, there is much humanity left. Yeah, we all know that from the beginning. They had yet to go beyond that. The rest of the characters were purely 2 dimensional. Mariko's character still comes across thin though the script tried to portrayed her as someone who finally found her calling after being a fragile lady in the beginning.

The show tried to be more dark, but somehow, it is not as close to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy at all. Someone will argue that this is rather an escapism superhero movie. Someone will ask us to oversee the holes in the plot, forgive the lack of character development, forget the cheesy script and story line at times. I did that. And still the movie did not appeal. The action is just OK. The martial art fighting scenes was nice, but tad too few. The fights are raw, and it ended up more like a street brawl rather than elegant. There are some nice moments, the earlier chase scene is good but other than that, they are forgettable. I would expect more mutants involvement, in the end, there was one mutant with healing powers, one mutant who can sort of tell how other people dies and one last mutant with some powers associated with poison. I do agree with some reviewer that this movie lacks a good villain. This did not feel like a mutant movie at all, it felt more like a movie about Highlander who cannot die with anger management issues. I am not a Wolverine purist neither am I a true X-Men fan, but I was rather annoyed at the fact that Silver Samurai turns out to be a robot. Being in Japan, I would expect the ninjas in more scenes.

There are good points. This is still outdo the first Wolverine movies. I do not how well it sticks to Logan history in Japan, but somehow the Japanese background of this story plus the "honour" concept works well for me. I still enjoy the movie though, but in comparison to the rest of the summer movies, this just did not hold.

ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: stay until least half of the ending credits. There is a small preview to X-Men 4 which sounds promising.

Red 2: older and wiser

This is weird, the day before I caught the opening of Red 2, I was watching GI Joe Retaliation, with both Bruce Willis and Lee Byung Hun. However, Joe was a total letdown. Tonight, I saw both of them sharing the same screen again. But the movie was way way way better.



For those who are still not familiar with the franchise, Red talks about the adventure of a retired spy, Frank Moses and his gang of spy friends from all over the intelligent network over the world. Red 2 basically share the same premise. The story is rather expected, and filled with holes that may even defy logic. However, we are here not to watch the story but to have fun. Frank again was force to run when his name and Marvin (John Malkovich) was implicated in a disclosure of a classified document in the net, similar to wikileak. Thus, they ran to London, Moscow and back to London for more adventure to discover who is the one who frame them and what is behind the whole supposedly weapon of mass destruction. To complicated matters, US government hired the assasin Byung Hun while London hired Mirren to take Willis down. However, no surprise there, they all became allies against a common enemy. Did I mention the whole story got so much hole that the numbers of hole beat the number of bulletholes in the whole movie? Yeah, probably I did.



Minus the fact the story is rather stale and predictable, on the other hand, it is really fun to watch all the veteran actors and actress sharing the same screen, and the chemistry is awesome. Forget about character development, we are here to watch all these retirees shoot bullets. And do bodies drop down like flies. The script is really funny while in the same time, do not sound stupid. For those who crave action, the shooting, the fights and the car chase is adequate though not the best. It does have its moment, totally love the slo-mo scene involving Mirren and Byung Hun shooting in a car chase, although it is a direct rip-off scene from the first movie. Despite the age, all of them actually look stylish in their own ways.



Finally, embracing my age do make my appreciate this movie more. Overall, it is a really fun movie, and sometimes, that is the reason why we watch movies: to have fun.

ratings: 3 half poink!
comments: irony, the staff behind the counter actually ask for my IC before selling me my movie ticket. Uh?!!

Pacific Rim: tribute to Mecha

I always imagine Guillermo Del Toro as a serious director with layers, I always love his Pan's Labyrinth. He even made superhero movies bit different, just look at Hellboy. However, after watching Pacific Rim, I must say, that even Del Toro a long time ago,  was a young little boy. And this movie is like a huge dream comes true for a little boy.

The story is fairly simple and run-or-the-mill for disaster/ monster movies. Monster invade the earth (this time via deep down in sea: imagine Battleship). Mankind is on the losing end (almost ALL monster movie). Mankind develop some hope (again, ALL monster movies). Team develop a plan (well, even for disaster movies). Team with glitches leading to sacrifice (imagine ID4). Mankind win. Hero gets the girl. Nothing we had never seen before.



This time, the monster is call Kaiju, from another planet/ dimensions which came via a crack under the sea. Mankind build enormous robot call Jaegers, always powered by  2 pilots which share memories and thoughts via a neural link. There has to be a hero with a dark past, Raleigh and he has to meet his co-pilot, Mako Mori. Together with other Jaegers, they develop a plan to stop the Kaiju all for once by closing the gateway. Someone had to be sacrifice and the end.


First. The character develops and the chemistry between them is really forced and appeared artificial. Really disappointed at this, I would have though Del Toro would do a better job in this department. The only true moment was probably when father and son pilots from the Australian Jaeger parted ways knowing that the son may never return from the suicide mission. The rest human scenes were all rather sterile. The final prep up talk (imagine ID4 moment before the airstrike) was fairly OK, but pale compare to ID4 (tag line: THIS IS OUR INDEPENDANCE DAY vs TODAY, WE CANCEL THE APOCALYPSE).


But I still love this movie. Not just like, but I actually love this movie. The action is really really good. And being an otaku myself, this movie simply rocks with all the tribute to all those Japanese show/ manga/ anime. The Kaiju resemble all the monster from Godzilla and Ultraman. Imagine giant monster fighting and destroying buildings. The Jaegers, is what mecha is all about. Big giant robot. Though not as complicated and stylish like Gundam, this is way better than Transformer (the movie, not the American or the Japanese series) which turn out to be more like "mechanical beings trying to act in an action film". This would represent how a mecha movie is to be made. Every moment when Jaegers are introduce, it send a chill down my spine. Totally love it when they brings out the Russian and the Chinese Jaegers, though prefer them to have a bit more role in the whole storyline. The action is better than Transformers probably because the opponent is organic monster so one can differentiate the good and bad guys. Otherwise it would be metal and gears moving all around.



All mecha fans should catch this movie. Now, I really hope they would do a live Gundam movie.

ratings: 3 half poink!
comments: low low poink due to the human touch. high high poink for the Jaegers. However, the last 2 mecha is bit difficult to differentiate so the last finale battle turn out to be most disappointing battle in the whole movie.