Picking the gristle of the Fantastic Four debacle from his teeth is Fox studio exec Tom Rothman. And by all reports it’s his repeated interference in the production of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ that has resulted in this mediocrity.
Look at the title. It’s bad enough they’re going down the now wizened route of origin story, one that disperses the final wisps of mystery and punctures resulting tension, but this title babies an audience of presumed idiots. Those who have already forgotten this movie is the result of a successful franchise.
What’s worse, one of the worst flaws of this film rests on dumb irony. Trying to tie it to current continuity and give it more resonance they’ve muddied the waters further with adamantium bullets that turn Logan’s amnesia into goofy contrivance, a young Cyclops and, inexplicably, new character Emma Frost, a mutant that we have yet to see again.
Fox’s lack of faith in the comic material they have in front of them seems baffling when you consider Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan’s artistic freedom and faith in Batman’s history or Marvel striking off on their own with ‘Iron Man’ and set to produce a connected movie universe.
Instead of those blockbusters, Fox gets a complete mess. Striking an uneven tone right from the start, all the epic potential from the trailers is dumped into the opening credits: a vigorous war montage that suggests exciting action, bold cinematography and a ferocious pace.
Why then are we instead introduced to Team X, supposedly a black ops unit and yet they walk right up to a mission objective looking like a bunch of narked-off strippers. Why go for subterfuge when a gay wisecrack in a lift would be far more apropos. And it’s like this for the rest of the movie: a cinematic scrap between studio-approved banality and fleeting moments of drama.
There’s no doubting Jackman’s presence, and Wolverine is one of, hopefully, many defining roles for the actor. Unfortunately he’s hamstrung by a script that spreads all of his character’s facets amongst the supporting cast. Whether it’s the motormouth merc Wade Wilson (Ryan Wilson, reprising his Hannibal King routine), later the mutant menagerie Deadpool, the tragic Bolt (Dominic Monaghan, probably the best thing in the movie) or the mysterious Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), each of them evince more humour, emotion and wolfish charm than Jackman’s Logan.
Even Liev Schreiber (a massive improvement on the previous actor), playing villain Sabretooth, has more bite and animalistic energy, leaving Jackman to pull off ferocious poses that look rather absurd surrounded by this puff piece. In fact, rather than elevate the character, it’s a regression, declawing the rebel with dubious morals and turning him into little more than Superman in a bad leather jacket.
The uneven tone aside, the script is a mess of moral platitudes, perfunctory twists, and an all too familiar redemption theme as Logan fights to prove he is not the animal a better film would have willingly indulged and still succeeded in ensuring the audience’s sympathies. Instead of rounded characters, it’s a who’s who of mutant kind that rather than sating the fans and thrilling the audience, instead, annoys and confuses them both equally.
The defining moment, the torturous baptism of liquid adamantium that transforms Logan into Wolverine, is less excoriating and more a disappointing signal of the film’s turn. Rather than let our hero suffer for a moment in the wilds, we’re inflicted with a moment of goofy comedy as an old couple spots him streaking across their ranch.
In between moments of slapstick as Logan examines his new metal claws and destroys a bathroom, sage advice is imparted by the wise old man. Fortunately he is able to gift that familiar leather jacket before the couple is cut to pieces by one of Logan’s pursuers.
While the climax is grounded in the reality of the Three Mile Island meltdown, the location for the mutant equivalent of Guantanomo Bay, it’s undercut by the hysterical comic book destruction wreaked by the characters. It’s this strange back and forth in the script, this schizophrenic setting up and then breaking down of logic that runs through the whole film and truly scuppers the movie.
In fact, when a small moment involving Monaghan’s Bolt early in the film expresses more sad humanity than all the heroic posturing in the climax, you realise this movie was doomed from the start.
Vampires, more than humans, realise that love is the one truly soul destroying element in the universe. And being immortal they crash up against the shores of this tragic landscape again, and again. In doing they also face the very thing that sustains them. The thump, thump of a heart and hunger.
The recent ‘Twilight’ touched upon this. The chaste love that must result if there is any chance of happiness. Unfortunately this was less to do with anything stirring, and more an extension of the writer’s batty Mormon beliefs.
It is with Tomas Alfredson’s ‘Let the Right One In’ that we have a fresh transfusion to obliterate the anaemia of what has gone before. Opening on a shot of falling snow bristling with strange magic, we switch to the stark, depressing reality of a Swedish tower block and the story of frail Oskar.
The film revels in this kind of opposition. Not a straighforward riff on the Vampire myth it instead shows how the myth impinges on the real world. In fact, while the film depicts familiar vampiric tropes, these are so well implemented into the fabric of the story to almost be a part of reality itself.
In fact, break it down and vampirism is simply innocence corrupted, specifically love. The eroticising or perversion of it into something dark and violent. And on one hand this is the essence of Eli and Oskar’s journey.
And it’s held together by an extraordinary performance from Lina Leandersson. Not to take anything from Kåre Hedebrandt as Oskar. He articulates the effect Eli has on him beautifully, moving from bullied timidity to a certain bold maturity. It’s Oskar’s likeability that draws us in to the story, but his is more a passive role. It is his interaction with Eli and his gentle expressions of affection (gifting his Rubiks cube or offering candy) that allow him to take his first faltering steps on the road to adolescence.
In contrast Eli is the aggressor. But it’s subtle; Lina’s face giving mere suggestion. On the surface she is porcelain purity with a wrinkled nose of cuteness that Oskar finds so charming. Go beneath, however, and her eyes describe an eternity of sorrow, pain and exhaustion.
While Alfredson refuses to shy away from her brutal and sometimes horrific acts, and in some ways he revels in them, proving in one scene of carnage at a swimming pool what an arresting visual director he is, when Eli turns those eyes on you, it is not so easy to condemn.
She’s being consumed by a terrible twofold dilemma. The corruption of an innocent and how best to express the bond she shares with Oskar; maternal or love? But more importantly, old ages’ greatest fear; being alone. In fact, the movie repeatedly emphasises how terrible it is to grow old; the inadequacy of Oskar’s parents, his teachers, the police and most importantly the decrepitude of Hakan and his strange relationship with Eli.
Is Hakan a man servant, a ward, a lover, a father figure or both a poignant and terrible look into the future for Oskar? These are a few of a myriad questions the film ignites in you, and the delicious thing about the poetic final scene on the train is that it leaves them all potential.
There is trickery at work here. That terrible, but fascinating tug at the heart and mind which cannot be resolved by one explanation anymore than by another. It should come as little surprise really when you consider the title is both a play on the vampire myth of invitation and also a warning to choose first love carefully or be ruined forever.
In fact possibly the most indelible image the film has is of a bloody kiss shared near the end of the film. Both a sign of love, and an ultimate distortion of it. A single resonant moment in a film filled with them. It’s one I was privileged to see at London’s Frightfest and cannot wait to see again. Let the hype continue to build. It’s one the few films that truly deserves it.
