FILM REVIEW OF ''THE WOLVERINE" (2013)

Let me say up front without apology that “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” qualified as a fantastic piece of formulaic fodder.  Before I saw director James Mangold’s “The Wolverine,” I watched “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” again and wondered how anybody could top such a tour-de-force tale.  “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” boasted everything that a blockbuster movie requires: charismatic heroes, wicked villains both human and mutant, larger-than-life spectacle, tearful romance, treacherous betrayal, and histrionic revenge.  During its first weekend, this Marvel mutant masterpiece coined over $85 million.  Ultimately, it grossed $373 million globally.  Comparatively, “The Wolverine” raked in only $55 million during its first weekend.  Analysts had predicted $70 million.  Not surprisingly, “The Wolverine” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) isn’t half as entertaining as the incomparable “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Although James Mangold is a gifted director, “The Wolverine” ranks below his other epics.  He directed the brilliant Johnny Cash & June Carter biopic “I Walk the Line,” the complex Sylvester Stallone crime drama “Copland,” the gritty western remake “3:10 to Yuma” with Russell Crowe & Christian Bale, the aggressive Tom Cruise actioneer “Knight and Day,” and the critically acclaimed chick flick “Girl, Interrupted.”  Mangold isn’t a high-profile, Oscar winning, celebrity director whose name sells tickets like Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron.  Capable and competent, Mangold has proven to be only as good as his material.  This above-average but uneven Twentieth Century Fox release suffers from undistinguished villains and a storyline that stalls out several times during its indulgent 129-minute running time.  Mangold excels when depicting the Wolverine’s woes.  Unfortunately, scenarists Mark Bomback of “Unstoppable” and Scott Frank of “Minority Report” have concocted a pedestrian yarn that doesn’t broaden our knowledge of the protagonist.    

Ostensibly, Bomback and Frank adapted Marvel’s limited-run “Wolverine” series written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller back in 1982.  Apparently, neither Bomback nor Frank fretted about fidelity to the source material.  They’ve altered several things for the worst, including Logan’s reason for visiting Japan.  Basically, “The Wolverine” is a sequel to “X-Men: The Last Stand,” not “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”  The early part of the film differs from the limited series graphic novel.   First, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen of “GoldenEye”) invades Logan’s dreams.  (If you’re hoping Jean will play an integral role in “The Wolverine,” prepare to be disappointed.  She appears, vanishes, reappears, and then keeps on annoying Logan one time too often.  The “Wolverine” limited run series contained a reference to Jean Grey, but Scott ‘Cyclops’ Summers worried more about her than Logan.  Second, Wolverine is camping in the woods and grieving over Jean’s death when he encounters a huge grizzly bear.  Later, a hunter shoots this bear with a poisonous arrow but the bear doesn’t die.  In the comic, Wolverine plunges into the bear’s den to kill it after it has slain several people.  In “The Wolverine,” he finds the poor bear and puts it out of its misery before heading off to confront the hunter.  Third, unlike Bomback and Frank, Claremont and Miller didn’t knit World War II, Nagasaki, and Wolverine’s saving an enemy officer into their narrative.  

“The Wolverine” unfolds on August 9, 1945, when the atomic bomb struck Nagasaki.  Across the bay from the city, the Japanese military maintain a prison camp.  The Wolverine, Logan (Hugh Jackman with his signature mutton chops), is sweating it out in solitary confinement when the atomic bomb falls.  (In “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” Logan participated in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II in Europe, and The Vietnam War.  Evidently, our hero must have been re-deployed to the Pacific after he helped vanquish the Nazis in Europe.)  Anyhow, Logan saves Japanese prison camp officer, Yashida (Ken Yamamura), after his three superiors commit ritual suicide.  Miraculously, Yashida and Wolverine survive the historic blast.  The Wolverine looks like a scorched pepperoni pizza. Our hero’s regenerative powers, however, enable him to heal completely without a scratch.  Yashida escaped certain death through the Wolverine’s intervention.  The prison camp officer emerges with a facial scar as a testament to his presence at the blast.  

 

In “The Wolverine,” the 68-year old Yashida refuses to succumb to death.  He has a doctor, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkov), who keeps tabs on his health.  The affluent Yashida is the CEO of a lucrative, global, electronics empire.  He dispatches his daughter’s friend to find the Wolverine.  The agile, pink-haired, sword-wielding Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks him down to a bar in Canada as he is poised to eviscerate the bear hunter.  Yukio convinces Logan to fly with her to Japan to see Yashida.  Meantime, the comic took a different path.  After he deals with the hunter in the bar, Wolverine winged his way to Japan because his girlfriend Mariko had stopped talking to him.  When he arrived in the Land of the Rising Sun, Wolverine discovered that Mariko wanted nothing to do with him.  Mariko’s gangster father Lord Shingen has come back into her life.  Moreover, Shingen has forced her to marry another man so he can dominate the Japanese Underworld.  At this point, Wolverine found himself up to his ears in Yakuza.

Hugh Jackman reprises his role as the tortured but sympathetic Logan for the sixth time.  The Wolverine is the only fully developed character in this mundane melodrama.  Meantime, the villainous Yashida emerges as a lackluster adversary who only wants to acquire Logan’s ability to withstand the effects of aging.  In the long run, the beautiful but bland Viper does little more than deceive Logan.  In the limited run series, all the X-Men showed up for our hero’s triumphant return.  Apart from one other character, Logan is the only mutant.  Mangold and company make their worse mistake when they pit Logan against well-armed humans who don’t have a chance in combat.  Mercifully, nothing is easy for our hero who comes full circle by fade-out.  The best scene occurs after the end credits of this half-baked hokum.  Despite its slick production values, the anti-climatic “Wolverine” comes up short as a seminal superhero saga.

FILM REVIEW OF ''RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION" (2012)

The fifth installment of the “Resident Evil” franchise “Resident Evil: Retribution” (*** out of ****) gives new meaning to the old saying: "A woman's work is never done."  Actress Milla Jovovich cavorts in her trademark, skin-tight, black outfit, wields weapons of every description which rarely run out of bullets, and performs more hyperactive gravity-defying stunts in some exotic new locales.  Indeed, this improbable science fiction fantasy series about an extremely evil corporation gone amuck should have run out of steam several sequels ago.  Nevertheless, writer and director Paul W.S. Anderson knows how to keep things exciting, and “Resident Evil: Retribution” represents another apex in the world of the villainous Umbrella Corporation versus Alice.  Basically, despite its tie-in with the Capcom survivalist video game, the “Resident Evil” movies are about Alice in zombie land versus some seriously mutated zombies along with some other scary villains.  This time around Anderson addresses the usual problem that confounds any film franchise which has endured as long as the “Resident Evil” epics.  Remember, the first “Resident Evil” appeared ten years ago!  If you haven’t seen the original film or the previous installment, how would you know what is happening?  Anderson’s solution is simplicity itself.  He presents us with an inordinate amount of back story during this nimble R-rated actioneer’s first quarter hour.  “Resident Evil: Retribution” resumes the action where “Resident Evil: Afterlife” concluded.  This gives Anderson that opportunity to hit ‘replay’ and we are treated to the last scene from the previous movie “Resident Evil: Afterlife” shown in reverse as well as forward.  As repetitive as this may seem, the scene aboard the Umbrella Corporation's Arcadia freighter where Alice and company are having the firefight of the century with hundreds of evil Umbrella helicopters is worth a rewind or two.   Those helicopters look pretty sinister, too.

After the bullet-riddled battle on the supertanker from “Resident Evil: Afterlife,”  Anderson presents an informative  recap of the entire franchise with Alice narrating her role in the saga.  Anybody who either missed or shunned earlier “Resident Evil” entries will know what their bearings are when “Retribution” unfolds its own narrative.  The chief villains in this entry are the Red Queen as well as Alice’s former compatriot Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) who sports a red scarab on her chest.  The Red Queen controls her through the scarab.   As the action opens, we find our indestructible heroine living a perfectly normal existence with a handsome hubby Carlos (Oded Fehr of “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” and “Extinction”) and their hearing impaired daughter Becky (Aryana Engineer of “Orphan”) in Raccoon City.  No sooner have we gotten used to this picture of domestic bliss than zombies burst out of nowhere and chaos rules.  What comes as an even greater surprise is that during her flight from these ravenous undead, Alice encounters her old friend Rain (Michelle Rodriguez of “The Fast and the Furious”) who picks up both Alice and Becky before the fleet-footing zombies can chomp her.   Unfortunately, Alice runs smack into husband who is now a zombie.  

Afterward, Alice awakens in an Umbrella Corporation interrogation room. She finds herself dressed much the same way she was at the end of the original “Resident Evil.”  Alice’s nemesis Jill wants Alice to reveal who she is working for.  Meantime, Alice wants Jill to remember that she once fought alongside her before the Red Queen gained mastery over her.  Just when the Umbrella baddies think that they have Alice cornered, somebody hacks into their system and gives Alice the opportunity to escape.  The Red Queen is an obnoxious little brat with a British accent who keeps reminding Alice that she will have her killed.  Meantime, the resistance forces campaigning against the Umbrella Corporation have to blast their way into a former Soviet submarine base where the Umbrella Corporation has constructed sophisticated mock-ups of Tokyo,  Moscow, Berlin, and New York City.  The only adversaries AWOL from this “Resident Evil” are the undead Dobermans.  At the same time, Anderson has brought back a giant galloping ogre beast along with two tall guys with gigantic mallets that look like meat tenderizers. 

The interesting thing about this “Resident Evil” entry is that Anderson never allows us to lose sight of the plot.  Good movies are like a car with bright headlights penetrating the murk on a dark road.  You always see where you are going, and Anderson inserts numerous recaps to keep us abreast of where we are.  Anderson also stages several acrobatic fights that look genuinely exhilarating.  Indeed, Alice rarely runs out of somebody to shoot.  At one point, our heroine actually runs out of bullets, but she resorts to a little battlefield salvage and appropriates some firearms from a fallen comrade who was gulped by a huge, four-legged ogre that also gobbled her daughter.  Alice learns later that the Umbrella Corporation imprinted all of the child’s memories in her mind. Worse, Alice discovers that the Umbrella Corporation has cloned scores of copies of herself.  The only thing that Anderson does that has been done already is the use of x-ray shots as bones are being broken during a fight; this gimmick was used first in the Jet Li thriller “Romeo Must Die.”  Eventually, Alice runs into an old adversary, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who has some dastardly ideas up his sleeve.  Wesker once commanded the Umbrella Corporation.  He appears here to bring Alice full circle with a revelation near the end that stuns her.

Most 3-D action movies constitute a painful experience.   Comparatively, the 3-D version of “Resident Evil: Retribution” surpasses the flat version.  Apparently, Anderson is the one of the few directors who understands that the best 3-D launches objects, whether an ax or a bullet, at the audience.  Too many contemporary 3-D movies are content to depict action in an environment that emphasizes depth rather than dimension.  Anderson relies on horror movie shocks and endless, noisy firefights to keep the action from flagging. “Resident Evil: Retribution” qualifies as an above-average 3-D fantasy that gives you a reason to wear those infuriating spectacles.  Skillfully staged action scenes, a slam-bang Tomandandy soundtrack, and ingenious production designs as well as settings make “Resident Evil: Retribution” worth watching.  Yes, “Resident Evil: Retribution” leaves things open for a sequel.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU" (1996)

Sitting through “Prophecy” director John Frankenheimer’s pretentious, half-baked, horror fantasy “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” (** out of ****) starring Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, may be enough to turn anybody into an animal.  Presumably, the financial success of genetic thrillers such as “Jurassic Park” and “Species” prompted producer Edward R. Pressmen to reanimate H.G. Wells’ literary classic for its third rendition.  Ironically, this deeply flawed but imaginatively updated version suffers a fate similar to that of the genetic mutants created by the titular villain on his remote island.

The movie opens on three plane crash survivors who have been adrift in the Java Sea for days.  Two of them are killed by a shark leaving our hero, Edward Douglas (David Thewlis of “Naked”), a United Nations peace negotiator.  Douglas awakens to the sight of a sailing vessel hovering over him.  He collapses from exhaustion and reawakens to find Montgomery (Val Kilmer of “Tombstone”) attending him.  Douglas is too weak to do anything more than swoon.  Eventually, the ship deposits them at an exotic island where the research center of Dr. Moreau is located.  Montgomery persuades Douglas to join him; on the basis that they have a telecommunications system on the island that Douglas can use to contact the UN.  As we soon learn, however, Montgomery is lying.  The island is actually the home and refuge of Dr. Moreau, a brilliant geneticist who was forced into seclusion due to his controversial experiments on animals.  Moreau has learned how to transform common animals into human beings, or almost human beings.

 Douglas finds himself trapped on the island, surrounded by Moreau’s beastly creations.  He tries to escape several times to no avail.  First, he stumbles in on an ungodly birth scene, and then finds himself in a half-man, half-animal zoo at an abandoned military airfield.  Finally, Douglas meets Moreau.  They argue about which way the scales of morality should tilt and dredge up Biblical passages to support their arguments.  Moreau tries to explain how his experiments will help mankind.  He reveals that he has discovered that the devil is a collection of genes.  Moreau means to sort out those bad genes and produce an ideal human.  He is even willing to accept a failure or two along the road to success, which accounts for the vast number of beast-men.  Moreau keeps these ugly creatures under his thumb by means of implants which he uses to shock them into paralysis.  Meanwhile, Montgomery keeps the creatures dazed and confused with narcotics.

The inventive but predictable Richard Stanley and Ron Hutchinson screenplay updates the 1896 Wells novel and does a good job of establishing the action in the 1990s.  The opening 40 minutes introduces audiences to everyone and everything they need to know about the plot.  Sadly, the script packs no surprises.  If you cannot figure out what’s going to happen from one moment to the next in the film then you must be on horse tranquilizers.  Suffice it to say, “Moreau” doesn’t qualify as a date movie, (unless you never want to see your date again).  Some of the gruesome looking creatures may even go on to inhabit the island of your dreams.  Stan Winston’s creature designs are impressive.  His mutants look as convincing as mutants could possibly look.  Sometimes, they are even nauseating.  Typically, they retain the basic shape of the animal from which they were mutated so they have a beastly looking head, hands and feet, while the rest of them is hidden beneath their apparel to conserve on costs.  The first grisly glimpse that Douglas gets is a multi-breasted beast mother siring an “E.T.” infant.  The other animals are a hideous collection of mutants with claw hands and snaggled teeth.  They gallery of beast men and women appears twice as grisly, gyrating their horrid bodies as Montgomery peddles narcotics to kill them happy. 

Marlon Brando treats moviegoers to another of his characteristically peculiar performances.  There is nothing ordinary about Brando’s brilliant but eccentric Dr. Moreau.  Brando stages a dramatic entrance, swathed in white garments under a pagoda-style hat, resembling a Japanese Kabuki actor in sunglasses.  He tolerates the steamy island heat and wears chalky make-up to preserve his delicate skin from the sun.  Metaphorically, this sun allergy relates somehow to Moreau’s moral infamy; he cannot stand up to the light of morality.  He appears like the great white hope in the camp of the beast men.  Brando adopts the same sissified voice that he used for his Fletcher Christian in the 1962 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty.”  He also never appears twice in the same wardrobe.  One scene finds him garbed like a nocturnal fridge raider while in another scene he appears bundled up like an Arab sultan.

A similar air of mystery surrounds Val Kilmer’s Montgomery.  Montgomery gravitates between moments of extreme clarity and apathetic zombie like drug dazes.  Either the script is purposefully vague or (more realistically) the editors sheared Kilmer’s performance to reduce the film’s running time to 90 minutes so they could squeeze in more showings and parlay a quick profit.  Ultimately, Montgomery assumes a Lucifer-like character in his apparent rivalry with Moreau.  Again, the script doesn’t clarify this part of the story.  Is Montgomery Moreau’s rival?  We never know for certain.

Audiences are meant to identify with the David Thewlis’ narrator.  Incidentally, Thewlis replaced actor Rob Morrow of CBS-TV’s “Northern Exposure.”  As Douglas, Thewlis is required to make his eyes bulge and to act in a manner that makes him appear ineffectually wimpy. The Stanley &  Hutchinson screenplay doesn’t allow Thewlis to cut the heroic profile that Michael York did in the 1977 version of “The Island of Doctor Moreau” with Burt Lancaster as the eponymous character.  The best that Thewlis can do is fire ill-aimed bullets at the rowdy beasts.

The trouble with this take on Wells classic is that movie audiences may find themselves frustrated because the only sympathetic character is a dud.  Thewlis does hold his own in his confrontations with Moreau as they argue about morality.  Moreau alleges that they has found evil and resolves to destroy it.  In destroying it, Moreau has recreated evil in his own warped image.  The atmospheric photography by William Fraker makes “Moreau” both fun and interesting to gaze at for long stretches.  Fraker lensed the action on location in sunny Australia.  In fact, “Moreau” looks as god as any movie that Frankenheimer has directed. The 66-year old director carved out his reputation back in the 1960s with classics such as “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Seven Days in May,” “Grand Prix,” and “Seconds.”  In his 1979 thriller “Prophecy,” Frankenheimer explored the theme of wildlife gone crazy because of polluted streams so he brings considerably artistry and some knowledge about the genetics in “Dr. Moreau.”

“The Island of Dr. Moreau” ranks as an ambitious but flawed horror fantasy.  Anybody who relishes Frankenheimer’s version of “Moreau” can hope that someday New Line Cinema will release a director’s cut that restores the lost parts of the film.  Indeed, an unrated director's cut was released, but it included on four extra minutes of footage. This well-made but routine epic concludes with Douglas moralizing about how Moreau’s island serves as a microcosm of the world and that we must all go in fear of man’s unstable nature.  The only thing that audiences can really go in fear of is the sequel that might lie over the horizon.  Troubled plagued the production from start to finish. Kilmer switched characters from Douglas to Montgomery.  Reportedly Kilmer--who was enduring a divorce at the time--clashed with director Richard Stanley.  Kilmer's clout was such that Stanley was gone and Frankenheimer took over the helm.  Frankenheimer experienced similar problems with Kilmer as well as Brando.