I have to say that, once again, this is a movie that is only enjoyable if you know what to expect. If you go into it expecting a gore-filled slash-a-thon with Wolverine mowing down baddies with all but minimal resistance, it won't live up. However it was what I was expecting, watered-down and all.
The point of Wolverine is not to be the be-all end-all Wolverine movie. The point is to get asses in seats, money in pockets, and just not actively disappoint people. My expectation going into this movie was pretty low and that it would be what it was: same tone/intensity as the 3 previous X-Men movies, pulled punches on the gore/blood and overblown action sequences that give more weight to scale and being bombastic than technical proficiency and realism.
Now, I think there is something to be said for viewing and reviewing all movies in a vacuum, judging it against all films, and for its lasting appeal and delivery on its potential. In fact, I respect Marco's opinions for this reason. It is the review that looks at things from a distant perspective: When someone watches this movie 30 years from now, will it be what it could or should have been?
I personally tend toward reviewing the full experience of a movie, the zeitgeist if you will. In this context, I deliver the following review:
Wolverine was what I expected, no more, no less. And I liked it because of this. The best part of the experience though, was the Terminator Salvation trailer beforehand.
The last line of that simple review holds the key to my expectations and similarities to Marco's reaction: To me, Wolverine was destined to be a piece of trash, not awesome, not mind-blowing, but instead a forgettable lead-in to the Summer Blockbusters to come.
Right now, I would say that Wolverine was enjoyable. On the other end of the summer, after being visually thrashed by Transformers 2 and having my soul crushed by the bleak world envisioned in Terminator Salvation I may have a different opinion of Wolverine, if I even remember it happened.
Here's my problem what you're saying. That movie sucked. I mean it really sucked. If you take the exact same movie, take away Hugh Jackman's fame, and put it on the Sci-Fi channel, no one would even know it existed. It would be uniformly torpedoed by anyone who bothered to review it. And 20 years from now it would probably be getting lampooned by the future equivalent of Mystery Science Theater.
ReplyDeleteBut we are getting used to letting Hollywood feed us trash through a funnel made out of popular franchises. I cannot condone this because they are making too much money off of me. So no, I'm not going to lower my expectations. I'm going to go into it expecting greatness and tell everyone when they fail to produce it. Otherwise, we will continue to get schlock like this. Because what a lot of people don't understand is that as long as we keep filling the seats, those Hollywood assholes will genuinely think this is what we want. Instead of the reality, which is "might as well watch this until something better comes up."
Whew, that concludes today's insane rant. Thanks for posting by the way.
Agreed, but my point is that Wolverine is shiny trash and that is what I expected. So the movie matched my expectations, thus was not a let-down. I knew what I was paying for and that is what I got. Now I would say that, yeah, the first X-Men movie was a let down because they added the tinge of wholesomeness and generic-ness but if you didn't see it coming going into this, the 4th movie of the franchise, I don't think you had realistic expectations. And... btw... Watch BloodRayne and tell me again that Wolverine is as bad as that Sci-Fi Channel wonder.
ReplyDeleteAt least there's actual BLOOD in BloodRayne.
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