The Wolverine trailer – reaction

From the first film in which he starred in the role – thankfully recast when Dougray Scott was delayed by the overrun of the filming of Mission: Impossible II – Hugh Jackman has been irrevocably linked with Wolverine, playing him in the original trilogy, a show stealing one line cameo in X-Men: First Class and now in his second solo outing, The Wolverine. Directed by James Mangold and written by Christopher McQuarrie, Scott Frank, and Mark Bomback, inspired by an 1982 comic storyline from Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, here the Geek Chocolate writers express their opinions on the first full trailer.

Brian Robinson – Looks like a vast improvement over the previous debacle. I don’t really know much about the Japanese storyline in the comics but this looks pretty damn good. Looks like they’re giving him some decent character work, with what appears to be a case of severe guilt over what happened to Jean Grey in the past. The moment where he launches himself above the train is impressive. And I know my wife will see this 😉

Les Anderson – First thought is another example of the artificial use of orange and teal in the colour grading to make flesh tones stand out.

Hugh looks impressively ripped but am wondering how it will fare with a mostly-unknown supporting cast. My feeling is Mr J will have to carry more of the film than he has before which he is capable of but it puts him more at the mercy of the director. Visually, it looks a bit too much like the last Wolverine film, which is unfortunate. I still think the best scenes with him are his very first in X-Men – very moody and with very spare effects.

I’ll still go and see it, though.

Michael Flett – So, in the first X-Men film he meets Jean Grey, but she’s honeys with Cyclops so he can’t have her; in X2 Mystique hits on him, but he says no because she’s a minion of evil, and in the third (of which we shall speak no more – EVER!) Jean Grey rises as the Phoenix, but she dies in his arms. Cue prequel, X-Men Origins, and he meets Kayla Silverfox, who dies. I don’t know the comic origin of this, but going by well established precedent, whoever the local sword wielding lassie who Wolvie is hanging with here, she won’t make the end credits.

It does look like it’s starting from the same place as the others, snowy mountainous frontier town where he can be anonymous, which we’ve seen before, but at least it moves swiftly to somewhere new. It does look like a generic action film – technically very impressive, no doubt, but I would much rather a lower budget and fewer explosions but with a strong story. And why did we need post production 3D conversion?

Hugh Jackman is a brilliant actor, but good as he is in this role, it doesn’t give him the opportunity to be his best, like he was in The Fountain. Still, anything is better than Van Helsing, which not even Hugh could make anything other than a hideous stain on recorded human history. Please can Stephen Sommers never be let near a film camera ever again?

Glenn Jones – I think the trailer looks good, although I’m not really expecting too much from the movie itself, but anything is going to be better than the original X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, which was pretty dreadful. The teaser Jean Grey shot I assume is a flashback to the X-Men: Last Stand film. It would seem he left the team shortly afterwards and became the dishevelled bum we see at the start of the trailer. Oh, the pain of stabbing your true love in the heart to stop her from frying the world…

Samuel Read – Two words; YES PLEASE. Some have suggested it’ll be a riff on Claremont and Miller’s classic, which is no bad thing, but the trailer also had a bit of the flavour of the Aaron and Garney run, which is also no bad thing. All told, lots of ‘slash, bang, ninja’ is what I was hoping for, so I am very much looking forward to this!

And I’ll hear nothing bad said about Van Helsing; history will prove it a classic.

Owen Williams – Whilst Hugh Jackman is universally amazing (apart from… y’know… THAT movie) and I had high hopes for The Wolverine, the trailer has taken me by surprise as to how underwhelmed it’s left me.

I love that it’s set in Japan (who’s not going to shiver with fanboy glee at the thought of Logan versus samurai?) and that, other than the brief appearance of Jean Grey, they haven’t tried to shoehorn as many mutants into the film as possible like the last one. It’s just the whole “make him human” part of it. It’s boring. They may well make it an interesting study of mortality but we all know that, by the end of the movie, he’s going to be back to normal, having chosen to take on his burden once more to kick ass and smoke a stogie for the final fight scene.

It’s a recycled plot from too many movies, and while it worked well in Superman II, but what about Peter Parker’s wall-crawling impotence in Spider-Man 2, or The Thing’s creation/cure/acceptance in The Fantastic Four? They even did it in the final episode of Chuck! No: the trailer has, basically, revealed the entire plot to anyone who’s a moderate film fan or knows anything about the structure of fiction; they can already see how it’s going to play out. I sincerely hope I am wrong as of all the X-Men characters it is Wolverine that deserves an outstanding outing, but at best this will be a “leave your brain at the door” movie.

Adam Dworak – Well, he’s hot. Grrrr. Hugh Jackman looks great, the new hair and the stubble, but that’s really all I can say.

I’m a bit disappointed because again I see the same story with Wolverine – he’s hiding in the north, he’s running from the past, there’s snow, there’s the scene in the bar lifted straight from the first film, there’s some sinister organisation trying to abuse his power. There doesn’t seem to be a new movie here. I want some twist in the character, but apparently I’ll have to wait until the next film to see that.

It also falls into the trap of so many modern trailers, it gives away far too much. Who wants to bet that the old guy who is dying is only after Wolverine’s power of regeneration to s
ave himself? Wow, what a shocker.

The Wolverine is scheduled for release internationally in the last week of July

Follow the link for our full review of The Wolverine

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