The Wolverine

Posted on July 25, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The first X-Men spin-off movie with Hugh Jackman as the super-healing, never-aging mutant who shoots blades out of his knuckles was called “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” This one is called “The Wolverine.” Got it?

Wolverine is the, well, lone wolf of the X-Men. After a flashback that shows him saving the life of a Japanese soldier as the atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, this chapter opens he is doing the Grizzly Adams thing, living in a cabin on a mountain far from everyone. His dreams are haunted by memories of Jean (Famke Janssen), missing her terribly and consumed with guilt over her death. That is the closest he gets to companionship. Because he does not age, he has witnessed more than a century of tragedy and destruction. He feels guilty for his part in it and he does not have the heart to engage any more. Or so he thinks. A poisoned arrow shot into a bear is enough to provoke his sense of justice. Or his anger, which is close to the same thing.

Out of hiding for a moment is enough time for him to be found by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a Japanese martial arts specialist with punky red hair. She tells him that the man whose life he once saved is dying and wants him to fly to Japan to say goodbye. He agrees to go for one day, but of course it turns out to be a lot more complicated and dangerous. Wolverine ends up having to rescue Yuikio’s sort-of sister Mariko (a pretty but colorless Tao Okamoto) from some bad guys including a lady with literally poisonous breath and a viper tongue (an unconvincing Svetlana Khodchenkova). One drawback of putting a real actor in the lead role is that is sets the bar pretty high. Jackman has more acting ability and screen presence than anyone else in the film and that throws off the whole movie off balance.

A superhero movie has to have three things: a reason to care about the characters, sensational action scenes, and a really interesting villain. I’d give this movie one out of three. There are some great action scenes, particularly a fight on top of what we’re told is a 300-mile-an-hour bullet train. It is a wonder of split-second timing. And Fukushima is a quick, inventive, and graceful combatant.

Secondary factors are strong as well. Director James Mangold (“Walk the Line”) draws effectively from the visuals of the Japanese atmosphere and setting, though does not make much from the culture beyond a demonstration of how to tie a samurai’s belt and a warning that chopsticks sticking straight up from a bowl are a bad omen. Wolverine has existential conflicts. I’d give a lot for a non-angsty superhero these days, but there is an interesting twist here in tying his reluctance to get involved to the emotional exhaustion of an endless life span. A superhero needs a super-villain, though. Here Wolverine fights a series of interchangeable yakuza thugs in action scenes that are artistically staged, especially one with arrows raining down on Wolverine’s broad shoulders and back, but the pay-off on who is behind it all is scarcely worth it. The real ending to the film comes during the final credits, when we see that what has been missing from this film is promisingly on board for the next installment.

Parents should know that this film includes constant fantasy superhero peril and violence with some graphic injuries and disturbing images, swords, knives, arrows, poison, characters injured and killed, drinking, some strong language (s-words, one f-word), and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: What does Wolverine mean when he says he is a soldier? Why was he so isolated at the beginning of the movie and what made him change his mind?

If you like this, try: the “X-Men” movies and comic books

Have a Tweet Chat with Wolverine

Posted on May 1, 2013 at 8:00 am

Fans are getting the special opportunity to ask Hugh Jackman questions about the highly anticipated film “The Wolverine.” Check out the Twitter pages for Hugh Jackman and The Wolverine on Thursday, May 2^ndat 12:00 pm ET to see Hugh answer your questions via video! You can start tweeting your questions now with #TheWolverine #AskHugh and comment on Facebook at for the chance to have them presented.

The Wolverine opens in theaters July 26, 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJa-_7PFFsY

Les Misérables

Posted on December 24, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Fair warning: I seem to be impervious to the appeal of “Les Misérables.” I was not a fan of the stage show or the songs, but I understand that it is the most popular musical of all time, and I approached this movie version with an open mind. My take is that it will make the fans happy, but I am still unpersuaded.

The musical is based on Victor Hugo’s vast novel about Jean Valjean (a magnificent Hugh Jackman), who served 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family and spends the rest of his life trying to do good and to avoid the relentless pursuit of Police Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), who is trying to put him back in prison for violating his parole.

When Valjean is first set free, he is bitter and angry. He repays the kindness of a priest who tries to help him by stealing valuable silver treasures from the church. Immediately captured, he is returned to the priest (played by Colm Wilkinson, the foremost Valjean in the stage version). But the priest insists that the items were gifts, and with the police watching, he encourages Valjean to take more. Valjean is transformed by this compassion and generosity, and he vows to be as good, loving, and devoted to helping others as the man who cared for him.

Years later, Valjean, under another name, is prosperous and public-spirited. He owns a factory and he is mayor of his town. Fantine (a heart-breaking Anne Hathaway) works in his factory to support a daughter she boards with an innkeeper and his wife. She loses her job because she refuses to sleep with a foreman and is forced into prostitution. Valjean is horrified and feels responsible. As she lies dying, he promises to care for her daughter, Cosette.

Valjean rescues Cosette from the corrupt innkeeper (Sasha Baron Cohen) and his wife (Helena Bonham-Carter). But he has attracted the attention of Javert, and so he and Cosette must hide. Ten years later, with Paris in the upheaval of a revolution, an idealistic young man named Marius (“My Week with Marilyn’s” Eddie Redmayne) sees Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and instantly falls in love with her. In the midst of uprisings and violent reprisals, Valjean tries to keep his promise to Fantine and keep Cosette safe and happy.

Production designer Eve Stewart has done a masterful job, making the setting as vibrant and as essential to the story-telling as any of the characters. Director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) made a critical contribution by having the actors sing their parts while they were filming, instead of pre-recording them to be played back when the movie was being shot. Since the movie is “sung-through” (all dialogue is sung rather than alternating speaking and singing), this gives the music a welcome organic quality and immediacy. Hathaway’s character is on screen for only a brief time, but her big number, the “I Dreamed a Dream” song memorably sung by Susan Boyle, is wrenching. Hooper keeps the camera on her beautiful face, like the “Nothing Compares 2 U” Sinead O’Connor video, the better to feel her anguish, and it is a stunning moment. Elsewhere, he over-does the artsy angles and sometimes assumes too much familiarity with the storyline. Crowe’s voice is not up to the task and Seyfried’s is stretched beyond its capacity. Newcomer to film Samantha Barks (from the London cast) as Eponine, the daughter of the innkeepers who also loves Marius, sings like an angel and lights up the screen.

It’s a long slog at nearly three hours, for a non-Miz-head. But I came away with more understanding of those who are.

Parents should know that this is an epic story of struggle against oppression with disturbing and graphic abuse of prisoners and others, many characters injured and killed, sad deaths (including death of a child), and a woman accused of sexual misconduct and forced into prostitution.

Family discussion: How does the priest change Jean Valjean’s notion of what he should do? Why was Javert so conflicted? Why were the rebels willing to risk their lives?

If you like this, try: the PBS concert specials saluting the 10th and 25th anniversaries of the musical and the non-musical film versions

Trailer: “Les Miserables”

Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:00 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnLSG5t_dc8

Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway star in the movie version of the international blockbuster musical based on Victor Hugo’s story about Jean Valjean, a prisoner who steals a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children, is sent to prison for 19 years, and then, when he comes out, is relentlessly pursued by a policeman for a crime he did not commit.

Hugo explained the themes of the book in a preface:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

The movie will be out at the end of the year. Until then, you can watch the Les Miserables: The 25th Anniversary Concert or Les Miserables, the non-musical version of the story starring Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman.

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Real Steel

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 6:57 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some violence, intense action, and brief language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Human and robot violence, character badly beaten
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 7, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	January 24, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B004A8ZWW4

The robot has the heart and the human has to learn to feel again in this unabashedly cheesy but irresistible fairy tale about a father, a son, and robots who bash the heck out of each other in a boxing ring.

Charlie (Hugh Jackman) was a boxer until human boxing was abandoned some time in the near future. Now enormous rock ’em sock ’em robots get in a ring and fight to total mechanical destruction. It is like something between trial by combat, a computer game, a cockfight, and a demolition derby. Now Charlie drives around from one skeezy venue to another, promoting whatever bucket of bolts he can get to stand up and throw a punch. When his robot loses a match because Charlie was distracted by a pretty blond, he loses everything. He actually loses more than everything because he bet more than he had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei5l3r1dV4I

He gets an opportunity to try again when a former girlfriend dies and he is left with their son Max (Dakota Goyo), with whom he has had no relationship. The boy’s wealthy aunt on his mother’s side (Hope Davis) wants to adopt him. Charlie agrees to sign over the boy in exchange for enough money to buy a new robot. It means keeping Max for the summer, so the aunt’s husband can take the child-free vacation trip he has been planning. Charlie planned to dump Max on another old girlfriend, Bailey (Evangeline Lilly of “Lost”), the daughter of the man who trained him as a boxer. But Max insists on going along and when the robot Charlie bought with the money he got is destroyed, Max finds an old sparring robot in the junkyard. He was never intended to be a boxer. He was not designed to throw punches, just to take them. But he has a “shadow” function that enables him to learn moves by imitating a human. And Charlie is the human who knows how to hook, jab, and uppercut.

Two things work surprisingly well in this movie. The first is the robots, magnificently designed and brilliantly executed. Real-life boxing champ Sugar Ray Leonard provided the boxing moves and gave each one of them a distinct style and personality in their approach to fighting. They are outrageously fun to watch. The second is the storyline. Part “The Champ” (made twice, both among the greatest sports weepies of all time) and part (of course) “Rocky,” the script is co-written by Dan Gilroy (the stunning fantasy “The Fall” and the uneven but intriguing and provocative “Freejack”). It may be cheesy but it embraces the cheese with enthusiasm and awareness. Jackman and Goyo bring a lot to their roles as well. We might lose interest in Charlie but Jackman makes us see that he is wounded, not selfish. And Goyo has just the right mix of determination and faith to show us that he has the best of Charlie in him and to show that to Charlie as well.

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