Film

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The Wolverine

Posted by John Klein III on August 6, 2013
Posted in: Film, Review. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

My wife and I saw The Wolverine last night.

It was nice to see additional Catching Fire footage, the Games’ uniforms don’t look as bad as I thought they would.

The only other remarkable trailer to note is the sequel to Thor, which I was not expecting to see.  I prefer my Thor to be on Earth, so hopefully we get plenty of that.

I really dug The Wolverine.

I liked how they kept making baby steps toward  making Movie Viper match Comic Viper, but they stop short of giving her green hair.  Which is disappointing.

I thought the actress playing Mariko did an amazing job.  Once they get off the train, she becomes instantly likeable.

I could have done with three less scenes with Jean Grey.  The first one is a nice  surprise but then we keep getting more.  The final one is cool with the White Hot Room.

I liked the battle with Mariko’s father, they probably threw that in there so that the fight from the Claremont / Miller miniseries would be represented.

Hopefully they do release an Unrated edition as Wolverine stabs a bunch of fools in the film.  It was cool to see him unleashed.

Mariko gets three love interests in the film, good for her.

I wish Yukio was given more of a free spirit in the film.  Or maybe just not with red hair, as if she can have red hair, why couldn’t Viper get green haur?  It really did bug me, I thought that’s why they did it, to get us used to non-traditional hair colors.

Mariko’s father was played by the actor who played Dogan on Lost.  I knew I recognized him from a television show.

Really couldn’t believe they took Wolverine’s adamantium claws away, that’s insane to me.

Some really good action sequences.  Some good characterization.  I wish  Mariko was still alive in the comics as I never really got any exposure to her outside of the failed wedding.

Not to many jokes, but they do stick out.  I guess they were looking for a balance.  Surprised about the profanity, made the film feel like it was more mature, which is what I want from a Wolverine film.

Hopefully Tao Okamoto, Mariko, gets to break out in the states as she was quite good in this film.

I wished we got more of Viper and Silver Samurai on screen together.  Or rather that Silver Samurai’s concept was more in line with the comic version and less of a giant robot / battlesuit.  Though it never felt like Wolverine vs. Iron Man, so that is good.

Also would have been cool to get Wolverine vs. Ninjas but Yakuza was awesome.

I had plans to ramp up to this post with reviews of the other films, but my wife surprised me with this.  Either I will do it for the DVD release or for Days of Future Past, probably for the latter.

That post credit scene is absolutely amazing!  Glad I was able to stay clear of any spoilers.  My wife believes that Wolverine got his metal claws back, vut they looked like bone to me.  I like how Logan has two year’s worth of adventures out there.

How Annoyed Must Ellen Page Be?

Posted by John Klein III on July 1, 2013
Posted in: Film. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

If I was Ellen Page, I would be pretty annoyed.  As soon as she heard the next X-Men film was going to be titled, Days of Future Past, she probably made sure her voicemail wasn’t full, that she was near her phone at all times, her agent was told to be expecting a phone call at any moment.

I’m sure when she was cast as Kitty Pryde for X3, due to her being an amazing actress, she did a quick Internet search for “best Kitty Pryde stories” and near the top of the list was Days of Future Past, issues 141 and 142 of Uncanny X-Men.  Also, since it was only two issues, she probably read those and noticed how important Kitty is to that story line.  Hopefully she also read 143 which is a definitive issue that I’m sure here at S&FwM (ooof!), we’ll be revisiting.

I’m not sure, naturally, how the conversation went with Bryan Singer, but I know I was annoyed when they announced her casting for X:DoFP within the same sentence with Anna Paquin and Shawn Ashmore.  Which I’m glad all three of them are in the movie but I would have liked Ellen Page to be given a more spotlight casting choice, sort of implies her importance to the film.  Is she going to be a main focal or just be one of the gals in the back of the room?

I can only imagine the conversation went something like this:

“Ellen, I would like you to be part of this upcoming X-Men film of mine”

“Sure, I would love to, surprised its taken you this long to give me a call”

“Oh, why would you say that?”

“I imagine you’re going to have Kitty be the one who actually goes back in time, right”

“Oh, … uh, well, you know, we are going in a different route for this film”

“You mean there will be no time travel?”

“Yes, there will be time travel”

“If I’m not the one doing the time travel who is?”

“We’ve decided to give Jennifer Lawrence the time travel aspect to the movie”

“I guess that makes sense … so am I at least going to be the leader of the Brotherhood gang and attacking Washington DC?”

“Oh … … well … no, not really, we’ve also decided to give Jennifer Lawrence that role too, you know, because of how great she is”

“Right … she is pretty great and all, but you are titling this Days of Future Past”

“Yes!  Which is why I’m calling you now to see if you would be interested in being part of this movie”

“Well, Bryan, I appreciate you calling me this far into the process and I would love to.  I’m going to be paid like three million dollars for this right, due to the injustice of all of my character’s fans?

“Oh Ellen, you crack me up, see you in November!”

*click*

It had to be something like that right?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Jennifer Lawrence as much as the next guy and eventually will get around to watching Silver Lining Playbook but I’m going to Babe Ruth this right now and say that they’re going to be giving Lawrence an incredibly big role in this movie and I’m really hoping that Ellen Page isn’t going to be Wall Flower, as that’s a different character.   (Oh, if only you can see me laughing a little right now.)

Really liking the casting thus far, glad Patrick Stewart is coming back, as I’m – I don’t want to tip my hand too much as I’m sure I’ll be reviewing X3 one of these days – completely okay if they just ignored X3 besides the amazing casting choice in Ellen Page.  She was Kitty Pryde for like two months before the world knew her as Juno and got Oscar nominated and has had quite the career.  Really dug her in Hard Candy and Super.  Should buy Super one of these days.  She was cool in Inception too, should rematch that one too!

What I’m getting at is that Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde was by far the best part of that movie and would like to see someone edit that movie down to just her scenes and that would be cool.

I love the story Hugh Jackman told about how he was about to eat some pasta as he was done shooting Wolverine’s Japan Adventure, and though he was done when he got the call to be in X:DoFP and had to stay in that astonishing shape.

Should be a good time and now that I’m thinking of Wolverine, that movie is coming up on July 24th, so I’m sure I’ll be talking about that movie and such in the next couple weeks.

Hopefully Singer is going to at least get that image of Wolverine and Kitty in front of a Wanted Poster a la the cover to Uncanny X-Men 141:

X-Men_Vol_1_141

Even if it’s just a marketing image, that would still be awesome!  Now with First Class, they do have all the roles cast so it’s a possibility!