John McClane and The Wolverine

OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS:

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine goes to Japan to find himself in his sixth film, and Bruce Willis’ John McClane, in his fifth film, goes to Russia to find his estranged son.

Joint Review of The Wolverine and A Good Day to Die Hard (both 2013)

A Good Day to Die Hard
Grade: D
Starring: Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Rasha Bukvic, Yulia Snigir, Cole Hauser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Premise: John McClane travels to Russia to find his grown son, Jack, whose CIA spy duties have gotten him into deep trouble.

Rated R for strong violence and blood, language, intense action including several devastating car accident scenes, and brief suggestive material

That A Good Day to Die Hard even exists is a crime. True movie fans probably know this without even seeing it, everyone else will after they watch it (if they do—which isn’t recommended). It’s not just a crime in that it’s a bad movie (which it is), but its real wrongdoing is once and for all soiling the name and aura of one of the best action films of all time and possibly one of the best films of all time, 1988’s original Die Hard. That memorable terrorist thriller introduced audiences to John McClane (Bruce Willis) a then-vacationing NYPD detective whose destiny turned out to perpetually be The Fly In the Ointment, The Wrong Guy in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time, the guy who gets into other people’s messes and fixes them, all by just making things up as he goes along. That setup proved bountiful in the original and two intense 1990s sequels, and even a not-too-bad fourth adventure a few years back. But A Good Day to Die Hard is a bomb, an absolute train wreck from the instant it begins, and it will feel like a tragedy—even a very personal wrong—to those who love the franchise.

 Story: Supposedly in the twilight of his police career, John McClane (bald-as-an-egg Willis) decides to take an impromptu trip to Moscow when he learns his son Jack (Jai Courtney) is a CIA detective in what seems to be in a serious spot. Jack has recently been arrested for murder and is now being forced to testify as a witness in the high-profile trial of fallen-from-grace Russian scientist Yuri Kamarov (Sebastian Koch). Said trial is interrupted—just before Papa John can walk into the courtroom to find his son—by a bombing, a scheme led by a chuckling Russian gangster (Rasha Bukvic). Jack escapes with Kamarov—his witness to prove the wrongs of another famous Russian bigwig—but his superiors at the CIA refuse to provide him with an evac with the Russian mob hot on his tail. They’re in such hot pursuit Jack barely escapes; he does, though, thanks to his old man, whom he is loathe to thank. After all, no matter his dad’s toughness and instincts in a tight spot, Jack still sees the guy who divorced his mom and who was more interested in his career then his kids. John, for his part, is borderline desperate to connect with the son he overlooked. With the Russian mob hot on their tails, John tries to get Jack to connect him, to really trust him, so they can work together to get Kamarov to safety in CIA hands.

What Doesn’t Work?

Almost everything. A Good Day to Die Hard is a muddled mess, less a new entry in a 25-year old iconic franchise than some C-grade TV thriller with corny Eastern European villains, a boring plot, dark, cloudy visuals, tissue-paper thin characters, and rushed, borderline-unintelligible dialogue (I had to watch the entire movie in English subtitles to understand the majority of even the Americans’ lines). As previously stated: that this film is at all associated with any of the previous entries, let alone the original Die Hard, is a travesty. It does the name serious disservice. 

 Okay, so, I didn’t really expect anything awesome from a fourth sequel, but A Good Day sinks like a stone. The beginning, with the muttering Russians with unintelligible names, doesn’t inspire confidence, and the rest of the movie follows suit. It sprints through its set-up, treating early scenes like an inconvenience that must be dealt with until the bullets can start flying, but doing so leaves out the answers to some important questions: How does John McClane not know that his son is in the CIA? How does he find out about the murder trial? Why does he keep saying he’s on vacation when he went to Moscow specifically to find his son? Why doesn’t his son have a personality? Why? It gets worse: People walk away from crushed car pileups with nary a scratch, people jump out of buildings to evade explosions or gunfire only to land happily in canvas tarps or conveniently-placed swimming pools and the main villain, Bukvic’s playboy, is supposed to be scary but he spends his time eating carrots and tap-dancing, and his big attempt to psychologically wound our heroes involves reminding them that Ronald Reagan is dead.

 Oh, and our heroes? Our barely-tolerable protagonists is more like it. We know John and Jack McClane are the main characters, and main characters don’t usually die, so they don’t, but that’s about all the significance they have. Other then a glimmer of chemistry or two, the movie has a big black hole at its center where meaningful characters should be (a far cry from the original and even the decent Live Free or Die Hard, the most meaningful aspect of which was the odd-couple relationship between the tough, manly McClane and the likably goofy Justin Long, playing a wanted computer hacker). These two just yell at each other over the roar of gunfire, and in between explosions. As Jack, Courtney—who showed flashes of potential in last winter’s Jack Reacher—scowls, mumbles and lacks any real traits except the irritating habit of calling his father “John” or “McClane”, just in case anyone figured the McClane family wasn’t the happiest bunch in the world. And Willis himself has a hard time eliciting even slight grins from the audience with weak one-liners. **NOTE: One of A Good Day’s biggest missteps is wasting Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy McClane; she’s in two brief scenes here, but her feisty tough-girl was Live Free’s other X factor**

 What Works?

Willis will never be completely charmless. While this script’s attempts at humor mostly elicit groans, his patented “Yippie-ki-yay” can’t help but raise your spirits, and the actor even brings a touch of real, gruffly-gentle father pathos to a brief scene where he tells his son he’s had a good day with him, even if they’ve spent it running for their lives. There’s little else to recommend in this film (and I’m not recommending it), other than perhaps a vaguely-watchable action scene or two, but even these are largely marred by huge gaps in logic ("he would not have survived that!") or third-rate special effects (that almost laughable helicopter explosion at the end, followed by our heroes falling into the Conveniently-Placed Swimming Pool).

 Content: There was no real reason to make Live Free the first PG-13 film in the series except to lure in some more bucks, but whatever. A Good Day celebrates its R-ratedness with plenty of F-words, a few bloody wounds, a quick shot of a woman in a skimpy outfit, and some loud, guns-a-blazin’ violence. Seriously, though, you do see at least two people get shot through the head at close range. Keep the kiddies away.

 Bottom Line: Tiresome, barely-watchable dreck that shames the series that spawned it.

THE WOLVERINE

Grade: B-
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Hal Yamanouchi, Ken Yamamura, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Famke Janssen
Premise: Self-exiled from the other X-Men, Logan is lured to Tokyo by an old acquaintance with an incredible offer.

Rated PG-13 for intense action violence, some blood and gory material, language, and some sexual content

I hadn’t planned on seeing The Wolverine—Hugh Jackman’s sixth go-round as Marvel comics’ metal-clawed leading man—until a couple days ago, when some friends convinced me to, and here I am pleasantly surprised. In a summer of hotly-anticipated, big-budget whoppers so underwhelming I can’t remember anything about after having seen them (Fast & Furious 6, The Lone Ranger, After Earth), The Wolverine might actually be the first blockbuster this summer that exceeded my expectations. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, but I really didn’t think the world needed another X-Men movie, let alone another solely about the surly, burly Wolverine, but I can already tell it’s one movie from this summer that will stand alone in my mind. And that’s saying something.

Story: Time has passed since Logan (Jackman) had to kill his lady-love, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), to stop her from being fully overtaken by her powers and destroying the world (in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand), but he hasn’t healed. When he’s not having disturbing nightmares, he’s wandering the woods, occasionally surfacing in local towns for a beer or some batteries for his radio. He’s also sworn (to the memory of Jean) that he will never use his claws for malicious intent again. However, he’s right on the verge of breaking that vow and teaching some drunken thugs a lesson when a red-haired, sword-wielding Japanese woman (Rila Fukushima) intervenes. Not only does she wield a sword like a mean extension of her body, but she appears able to tell the future. And she has an invitation for Logan: accompany her back to Japan to meet her employer (Hal Yamanouchi), the elderly, dying business tycoon Logan saved decades before from severe injury during the Nagasaki atomic bombing at the end of the World War II. The old man, who--as a soldier at the prison camp where Logan was being held, saw and realized the full extent of Logan’s powers when he survived the nuke--has spent his life expanding the bounds of robotic and medical science, trying to find a way to make himself immortal, too. However, when Logan appears before him (ostensibly “to say goodbye”) he offers something seemingly-impossible: immortality. Logan can rest, after his nearly two centuries of life, and be forever united with Jean’s spirit in the great beyond.

The old man dies, but Logan’s adventure doesn’t end there. He smells trouble. Members of rival Japanese gangs are dogging the old man’s remaining family members everywhere, with their attention focused on the man’s gorgeous granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto). There’s also a fellow mutant (Svetlana Khodchenkova) manipulating gangsters and trying to seize the old man’s family power for herself. And most troubling of all, Logan’s not healing like he used to; he’s getting tired and weak, and he wonders if the old man’s offer of immortality might have really been a great opportunity.

What Works?

The first great thing about The Wolverine (based on a 1982 limited comics series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller) is that it’s based in Japan: I can’t be the only person who’s tired of seeing New York City or Los Angeles as the setting for every blockbuster (which typically means they get blown to bits). The change of pace allows for original, refreshing casting, and a certain cultural texture that keeps this from feeling like just another Marvel movie (it also doesn’t hurt that pretty much all the baddies are acrobatic, sword-wielding ninjas, so the fight scenes are pretty invigorating). It’s also anything but a one-trick pony: it’s ideas don’t end with Wolverine goes to Japan, there’s plentiful twists and turns, and the lurking question “do you think Wolverine should give up immortality so he can really live, then rest”? It’s a layered, thoughtful question, that could bring each audience member some perspective. And the opening re-creation of the Nagasaki bombing—complete with a clear-as-day shot of the bomb dropping—is absolutely mesmerizing.

                    

Even though the character Wolverine only really has two settings—growling one-liners and bellowing in pain and/or rage—Jackman has to be one of the most watchable actors alive. Having proven he can do a lot more than this with his Oscar-nominated turn in December’s Les Miserables, Jackman slides back into the claws with ease and proves as tough and heroic as ever before. While Wolverine is the main focal point and everything else revolves around him, Japanese actresses Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima make positive, likeable impressions as well.

What Doesn’t Work?

The lack of other mutants. Not only do you wish to see Magneto or Storm or Iceman or Pyro or somebody else with real powers, you’re also saddled with the notion that, at the end of The Last Stand, people were dead, sure, but you got the idea the surviving X-Men would stay together. Thus, the fact that Wolverine’s off by his lonesome is depressing and doesn’t seem to fit with the other movies. Oh, and like most other comic book-based movies, The Wolverine has trouble keeping a steady pulse when there are no fights going on, and even when there are, all the main fights go on way too long (the build-up is almost always better then the climax in movies like this). Famke Janssen’s cameos as Jean (in dream/hallucination sequences) are groan-inducing eye-rollers—Wolfie’s idea of “heaven” is depicted as being in bed with Jean while she sports a low-cut, lacy top. Also, for the second time in the last big blockbusters I’ve seen (The Lone Ranger being the other), I can’t fathom why a troubled hero, who appears to have found peace with a certain woman (Wolverine with Mariko, here) won’t stay and live with her, rather than run off because that’s what he does. The depressing truth is, it’s probably because the idea of Wolverine living happily and peacefully in Tokyo doesn’t seem like it could yield very marketable sequels.

 Content: Like most Marvel Comics movies, there’s a lot of fighting and assorted mayhem, but between the shaky-cam (how I do hate shaky-cam) and the necessity of maintaining a mostly family-friendly vibe, there’s hardly a drop of blood, even as our hero slices and dices people with his adamantium claws. There are a lot of intense moments, including poisonings, sword-fights, and a part where Wolverine has to perform an emergency heart surgery on himself, so little kiddies will get a bit of a shock, but most fanboys will love it. Jackman also uses a couple four-letter words.

Bottom Line: It’s not the best X-Men movie, but it’s not the worst, either: The Wolverine has its flaws but a change of scenery, some new characters, and some interesting dilemmas make this one of the summer’s best blockbusters so far.

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Directed by John Moore
Screenplay by Skip Woods; Based on Characters Created by Roderick Thorp
Rated R
Length: 98 minutes

The Wolverine (2013)

Directed by James Mangold
Screenplay by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank; Based on the 1982 comic series “Wolverine” by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller
Rated PG-13
Length: 126 minutes