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The Wolverine

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the_wolverine_digital_exclusiveTara and I went and saw “The Wolverine” last night and off the bat, I’ll saw I was happy it wasn’t overly loud. Guessing that’s the theater, but hopefully it’s something we’ll see/hear more of in the future.

Anyway, the movie starts off with a bit of back story of Logan/Wolverine in Japan during WWII. And sadly, it also starts part of maybe the biggest issue with the movie: Japanese stereotypes. They’re not offensive in any way, but after the movie is over, we found ourselves laughing at how many there were, and it covered ((Seppuku, Mecha, a pachinko parlor, Samurai, Ninja, Yakuza, etc)). The movie largely takes place in Japan, with a fair amount of Japanese spoken (with and without subtitles, depending on if they want you to rely on another character translating). It mainly focuses around Logan hiding from his Wolverine persona, and protecting the grand-daughter of a man he saved back in WWII who had since started the equivalent of Sony, and was dying.

The movie fit the standard comic based movie, and was not a bad addition to the recent Marvel catalog, but I wouldn’t call it “good”. The last Wolverine movie was bad. This one is maybe on the plus side of okay. I’d watch it again, but I wouldn’t put it in my top list of comic movies, Marvel or not. I think it really comes down to, any comic movie based solely on one character seems difficult to pull off without being boring. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America did a good job of this, but doing one on Wolverine would be like doing a movie based entirely on Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Entertaining maybe, but not really something you could tease out a 2 hour movie from (which was how long “The Wolverine” was, which seemed a bit long).

So, in short, see it, but don’t expect something as good as Iron Man 1 (or 3), Thor, or Captain America. Expect something more like Iron Man 2. Okay, but not great.

[xrr rating=3.75/5]

Iron Man 3

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Iron-Man-3Over the weekend, I saw Iron Man 3 in the theater, in 2D (I want to do everything possible to eliminate 3D from the movie theaters). I will say that going in, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Iron Man 2 was not particularly good, and the early reviews on IMDB for Iron Man 3 were less than stellar (though this seemed to be due to people wanting the movie to by like the Chris Nolan Dark Knight movies).

Previews took for bloody ever (not unlike other Disney movies), but once we finally got to the movie, it pretty much set a pace within the first few minutes, and kept up on it through the rest of the movie. Acting and Direction is pretty much what we’ve all come to expect from A. A Marvel Movie (post Daredevil/Fantastic Four/X-Men Last Stand), and B. A Robert Downey Jr., Gwen Paltrow movie.

Without ruining too much, the movie is darker. Stark does suffer from PTSD after what happened in Avengers (which seems a bit lame, but whatever). But it stays pretty true to the previous two movies, as well as the larger Avengers universe. No doubt Joss Whedon is getting some editing “rights” to the scripts.

All and all, a good movie. Never felt like it dragged during the action (which there was a fair amount of), and it has to be the best example of a movie introducing a “kid” but not allowing that to ruin the characters or the movie. And Ben Kingsley is awesome.

In short, see it. It’s well worth the 2 hours.

[xrr rating=4.75/5]

The Avengers

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With the Avengers movie finally arriving after several lead-up movies/cameos (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America), it’s about time that everyone got a chance to watch it, and read the eventual reviews afterward. If you want to short version: See it. Love it. It’s quite good. For the long version, read on.

The movie starts off already moving, and Loki shows up in no time ready to wage war against the helpless humans. Samuel L Jackson quickly makes the call, and the team is assembled with some stragglers (Thor shows up on his own, later, since getting in touch is not exactly a phone call).

As expected with a group of type A personalities (except possibly Captain America), conflicts abound within the team, but eventually they all come together to conquer the challenge.

As expected, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, really is the “star”, though the script that director did a very good job at giving all the individuals a good amount of time, story, etc. As usual for a Joss Whedon film, there’s a good amount of sarcasm, jokes, and humor for an otherwise serious film. And, as also typical, a “main” character dies. I won’t say who, but when it happens, it’s hard not to curse Whedon for his “signature“.

While it was obvious the movie was “long” it wasn’t unbearable, and the climax action scene, even though it was probably 15-20 minutes, it wasn’t boring like many action sequences can be. And I HIGHLY recommend you stay for the whole credits, and what comes after. It’s good for a laugh.

Highly recommend the movie, though I think Hollywood needs to re-examine their trailer writers/designers, because coming into this movie I was a bit concerned based on the trailers. Thankfully, those concerns were un-realized. This was easily the most enjoyable of the Marvel movies, with maybe the exception of Iron Man (1), but even that would be tough.

[xrr rating=4.75/5]