I admit I was taken aback with this one. I hadn't planned on watching as Wolverine films tend to be a bore to me. Not long into it, I was sure I had missed a previous film, one that would explain for example how Xavier ended up broken and hidden away, how Wolverine has washed up as an alcoholic limo driver.
But no this is it apparently, and this is the thing.
We can be lowered late at night in the middle of a world that has long now been spun in motion. We can discover as we go. We can catch glimpses of a larger world as we move through it. We don't need to be racing to save the world, making it out of this room alive is enough, wondering and having no idea where to turn to next are fine.
None of it is novel, in fact all of them mainstays of 80s film, from Bladerunner to Terminator. But after a glut of samey, mechanized Marvel and X- men movies obsessed with 'universing' a greater story, this one feels welcome and fresh.
Another obvious influence here are western films and this probably sheds some light on Wolverine's popularity. So many of the other X-men have awesome abilities to alter the fabric of reality; Wolverine is just a gruff who kicks and punches his way through. It seems there's always going to be a hankering for the simple, uncomplicated guy.
So what more obvious choice than to cast him in the light of cowboy? It works but you'll note it's not any cowboy. They could have used Red River as template, or The Searchers. They used Shane. The flawed guy who risks all to ensure there are 'no more guns in the valley' but must ride off again at the end because his kind has no place in the world of loving farmsteads.
It's always indicative of a broader sensibility when I see this type being used, the resignation that someone has no place in a changing world and is better off being swept away with the old, this seen as 'honorable' and heroic.
But from the little girl (and her friends') point-of- view we have what? A fictional Eden they only knew as stories in a book but their desire for it has inspired an actual one.
But no this is it apparently, and this is the thing.
We can be lowered late at night in the middle of a world that has long now been spun in motion. We can discover as we go. We can catch glimpses of a larger world as we move through it. We don't need to be racing to save the world, making it out of this room alive is enough, wondering and having no idea where to turn to next are fine.
None of it is novel, in fact all of them mainstays of 80s film, from Bladerunner to Terminator. But after a glut of samey, mechanized Marvel and X- men movies obsessed with 'universing' a greater story, this one feels welcome and fresh.
Another obvious influence here are western films and this probably sheds some light on Wolverine's popularity. So many of the other X-men have awesome abilities to alter the fabric of reality; Wolverine is just a gruff who kicks and punches his way through. It seems there's always going to be a hankering for the simple, uncomplicated guy.
So what more obvious choice than to cast him in the light of cowboy? It works but you'll note it's not any cowboy. They could have used Red River as template, or The Searchers. They used Shane. The flawed guy who risks all to ensure there are 'no more guns in the valley' but must ride off again at the end because his kind has no place in the world of loving farmsteads.
It's always indicative of a broader sensibility when I see this type being used, the resignation that someone has no place in a changing world and is better off being swept away with the old, this seen as 'honorable' and heroic.
But from the little girl (and her friends') point-of- view we have what? A fictional Eden they only knew as stories in a book but their desire for it has inspired an actual one.