The action looks crisp and intense. Hood is a solid director. For a film that had a lot of behind-the-scenes problems, this is a surprisingly solid trailer. I like that final bit of Wolverine being blasted from the Jeep onto the helicopter. Shown in a wide shot no less. Hopefully it'll be a fun summer action flick.
I'm actually surprised. It looks halfway decent, and I'm not a big fan of movies like these (never saw any of the X-Men flicks).
There were rumors going around that Fox wanted to neuter this flick's intensity, and with Fox's miserable track record and recent tendency to release...uh...excrement, that doesn't surprise me.
Someone please settle an ongoing argument I'm having w/ my girlfriend. These 40ish stars, specifically Jackman and Daniel Craig, all do a cycle of roids before principal photography begins, right? 40ish stars with time, money, personel chefs, and personel trainers look like Matthew Perry. Add roids and you have Wolverine.
What's the consensus? My girlfriend's heart hangs in the balance.
Nobody is doing roids. They eat well, go on strict diets, exercise, lift weights, and give a shit about how they look. That they're paid tens of millions of dollars to do this is beside the point.
Watch the trailer again. Hugh is jacked bigger than Stallone ever was in the 80's, and we know he was juicing. These guys are MLB cleanup hitters. i don't buy that Bale, e.g., wasn't at least on HGH prior to American Pshyco and post The Machinist.
Using steroids causes the balls to shrivel, which appears to have happened to the "X-Men" franchise. This looks only slightly better than "Electra" to me.
Posted by Nick Rogers at December 16, 2008 11:15 AM
Part of me would like to think that with three months of hard work, a full time personal trainer, personal chef and nutritional/supplements consultant, any 40's actor with above average genes could get jacked up like Jackman or Craig. If you look decent to begin with, adding even 4 pounds of muscle makes for a hugely dramatic change in how you look with your shirt off.
Still I wouldn't be surprised if there's some special sauce in the supplements they're getting.
Uh, it's just a trailer, but this will likely be better than Electra. Gavin Hood is not a hack, and his first Hollywood sellout job was not terrible.
Comic book movies have almost universally improved in the last three years. Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and Iron Man were all excellent. Even Incredible Hulk was decent in a double cheeseburger sort of way. I have hope Wolverin will continue the trend.
This is a prequel, and Wolverine is about 80 years old. William Stryker, however, must age, hence you'll have to suffice with Danny Huston playing the part instead of Cox.
NotImpressed: I greatly enjoyed all the movies you mentioned, and that's a perfect description of "The Incredible Hulk." But this just looks like endless billowy slow-motion jump-flying nonsense, kind of like all those forest scenes in "Electra." I know Gavin Hood is not a hack - I'm one of the few who really liked "Rendition" - but I fear this might be something out of his control.
As to my fundamental problem with prequels, the two biggest problems are: A) zero suspense; and B) over-explanation of a character's origins that takes away too much of their mystique (no pun intended here).
Posted by Nick Rogers at December 16, 2008 11:50 AM
I did say "almost" you dumbass :) Feel free to bring up Fantastic Four next.
And Nick Rogers, my feeling is that the quality and sensibilities of the script and direction are about ten times more relevant than the whatever problems are associated with origin/prequel movies.
Not saying this is gonna be some masterpiece, but very well may turn out to be a competent, solid b to b+ comic book movie. Jackman is a great talent, and the studio went with Gavin Hood over a Ratner type for a reason. It's hard to see how it could possibly be worse than X-Men 3. What a travesty that was.
NotImpressed: If it's worse than "X-Men 3," that would be some feat, indeed. I do, though, hope it's better than it looks to me based on that trailer and my thoughts about prequels.
Posted by Nick Rogers at December 16, 2008 1:42 PM
Ah, but Punisher: War Zone is such a gigantic exception that it kind of swallows your "almost" whole. :)
Besides, Fantastic Four (which I kind of liked as an antidote to all these "serious" super hero movie) came out in 2005, so you skate on that one. So I'll see it and raise you a Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007).
Re: Punisher War Zone, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?
Unfortunately I have no adequate response for the FF4 franchise.
We'll just have to wait and see for Wolverine. I thought there was some cool shit in that trailer - the wide shot of him going into the helicopter was pretty sweet. If the movie's even just as good as Incredible Hulk, I'll be happy.
Mark Says:
"Someone please settle an ongoing argument I'm having w/ my girlfriend. These 40ish stars, specifically Jackman and Daniel Craig, all do a cycle of roids before principal photography begins, right? 40ish stars with time, money, personel chefs, and personel trainers look like Matthew Perry. Add roids and you have Wolverine.
What's the consensus? My girlfriend's heart hangs in the balance."
Whether these boys use "help" when they are bulking up for films, I wouldn't know. But I do know that right out of the gate, the camera adds poundage. Period. Everything looks larger. And for those who think the new cameras lenses HD etc has changed that excess poundage thingy...it hasn't.
Why do you think the women and alot of men for that matter, in Hollywood get so thin? And will do ANYTHING to stay thin. Stallone looked huge on film. He wasn't THAT big. It's alot of tricks. Lighting, makeup, angles shot and simply the camera. It's an illuson.
What's kinda sad is when you see an actress who ON screen looks ridiculous skinny. (Angelina Jolie in "Wanted" for example, when she's walking away naked from the "recovery bath".) Now that chick is SKINNY. Whatever, I'm sure some find it sexy. The point is the camera adds pounds. All is not what it seems in real life.
And PS I know this for certain because this has been my life's work and the weight issue has and is the bain of my existence. Quelle Drag
I liked the bootleg from ComicCon much more, not that it was that much different. Danny Huston and Liev Schreiber look to be the most inspired thing about this.
That's the Wolverine series in a nut-shell. I just hope they don't de-claw him of his adamantium like they did in the comics in the 90s. That was just dumb.
Anyway, my only real gripe is that Gambit has a violet staff, since they seem to think that'll make those Star Wars geeks buy into it.
Rich: I think LG is just clueless right now, if those AICN reviews of The Spirit are any indiction. Silver Surfer delivered, at least, on the Silver Surfer part. Everything else was just bad fan-fiction, though.
Rich: You could point to any year and find a crappy comic-book movie made by someone unwilling to take the stories to interesting, or even modestly entertaining, places. That hardly means a hole in NotImpressed's statement.
Posted by Nick Rogers at December 16, 2008 9:35 PM
I'm still convinced if X:Men: The Last Stand had said "directed by Bryan Singer," a lot of the people who slam it would be singing its praises. It wasn't as good as its predecessor, but it wasn't a bad film.
Posted by Josh Massey at December 17, 2008 5:17 AM
Ratner apologists? X-Men 3 was terrible. A comic movie made by a guy who did not get it at all. Singer is capable of huge missteps (Superman Returns) but at least his films aspire to something besides being done on time and within budget to keep the studio happy.
But X-Men 3's biggest problem was that frankenstein screenplay. I heard in an interview that the screenwriters were dead set on doing the Phoenix story, and the studio was dead set on giving Wolverine and Storm as much screen time as possible, and through typical big moviemaking bullshit, we end up with a movie where Phoenix is a central character in the first half and then doesn't even have a speaking line for almost the entire second half. The screenplay was disjointed and made no sense that way. That's just the most glaring mistake in a movie filled with WTF stupid moments. For all of Singer's faults, do he think he would have associated himself with storytelling that terrible?
Hey, Nick, NotImpressed made the statement that "Comic book movies have almost universally improved in the last three years." Setting aside that it's kind of hard to qualify "universal" with "almost," that statement just isn't true.
The truth is, even taking Batman Begins, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Dark Knight and even Hellboy 2 into account, the bad, or at least mediocre, still far outweigh the good. Heck, I didn't even mention Hancock (2008), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Superman Returns (2006) or X-Men 3 (2006).
For some reason, people seem to think that The Dark Knight and/or Iron Man have provided some sort of "magic potion" to legitimize the genre. The sad fact is that TDK and Iron Man are pretty much the exceptions that prove the rule. I would say that Super Hero movies, maybe because of the inherent limitations of the genre, have always run about 25% good to 75% bad/mediocre. That's probably close to the ratio of movies on the whole, by the way. The last three years haven't changed that, and I doubt the next 100 will, either.
NotImpressed: "Singer is capable of huge missteps (Superman Returns) but at least his films aspire to something besides being done on time and within budget to keep the studio happy."
I don't see that with Valkyrie.
"we end up with a movie where Phoenix is a central character in the first half and then doesn't even have a speaking line for almost the entire second half."
And the same could be said for Superman.
"For all of Singer's faults, do he think he would have associated himself with storytelling that terrible?"
I just gave an above example. But there's also Apt Pupil, if that makes you feel better.
comment #1
actionman
says ...
The action looks crisp and intense. Hood is a solid director. For a film that had a lot of behind-the-scenes problems, this is a surprisingly solid trailer. I like that final bit of Wolverine being blasted from the Jeep onto the helicopter. Shown in a wide shot no less. Hopefully it'll be a fun summer action flick.
Posted by actionman
at December 16, 2008 7:49 AM
comment #2
Rich S.
says ...
Wolverine combines the two most intellectually-bankrupt genres out there: super heroes and prequels. I can hardly wait.
Posted by Rich S.
at December 16, 2008 7:51 AM
comment #3
Nick Rogers
says ...
Action prequels inherently suck. Gee, I wonder what will happen.
Posted by Nick Rogers
at December 16, 2008 7:56 AM
comment #4
rgmax99
says ...
I'm actually surprised. It looks halfway decent, and I'm not a big fan of movies like these (never saw any of the X-Men flicks).
There were rumors going around that Fox wanted to neuter this flick's intensity, and with Fox's miserable track record and recent tendency to release...uh...excrement, that doesn't surprise me.
Hope I'm wrong because that's not a bad trailer.
Posted by rgmax99
at December 16, 2008 8:50 AM
comment #5
Mark
says ...
Someone please settle an ongoing argument I'm having w/ my girlfriend. These 40ish stars, specifically Jackman and Daniel Craig, all do a cycle of roids before principal photography begins, right? 40ish stars with time, money, personel chefs, and personel trainers look like Matthew Perry. Add roids and you have Wolverine.
What's the consensus? My girlfriend's heart hangs in the balance.
Posted by Mark
at December 16, 2008 10:25 AM
comment #6
actionman
says ...
Nobody is doing roids. They eat well, go on strict diets, exercise, lift weights, and give a shit about how they look. That they're paid tens of millions of dollars to do this is beside the point.
Posted by actionman
at December 16, 2008 10:46 AM
comment #7
Mark
says ...
Watch the trailer again. Hugh is jacked bigger than Stallone ever was in the 80's, and we know he was juicing. These guys are MLB cleanup hitters. i don't buy that Bale, e.g., wasn't at least on HGH prior to American Pshyco and post The Machinist.
Posted by Mark
at December 16, 2008 10:58 AM
comment #8
Nick Rogers
says ...
Using steroids causes the balls to shrivel, which appears to have happened to the "X-Men" franchise. This looks only slightly better than "Electra" to me.
Posted by Nick Rogers
at December 16, 2008 11:15 AM
comment #9
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
Part of me would like to think that with three months of hard work, a full time personal trainer, personal chef and nutritional/supplements consultant, any 40's actor with above average genes could get jacked up like Jackman or Craig. If you look decent to begin with, adding even 4 pounds of muscle makes for a hugely dramatic change in how you look with your shirt off.
Still I wouldn't be surprised if there's some special sauce in the supplements they're getting.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 16, 2008 11:16 AM
comment #10
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
Uh, it's just a trailer, but this will likely be better than Electra. Gavin Hood is not a hack, and his first Hollywood sellout job was not terrible.
Comic book movies have almost universally improved in the last three years. Batman Begins, Dark Knight, and Iron Man were all excellent. Even Incredible Hulk was decent in a double cheeseburger sort of way. I have hope Wolverin will continue the trend.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 16, 2008 11:19 AM
comment #11
Abbey Normal
says ...
No Brian Cox? Wasn't his character established in X-Men 2 as the guy who created Wolverine?
I'd feel better about this if Cox thought enough about the project to sign up.
Posted by Abbey Normal
at December 16, 2008 11:45 AM
comment #12
Mark
says ...
This is a prequel, and Wolverine is about 80 years old. William Stryker, however, must age, hence you'll have to suffice with Danny Huston playing the part instead of Cox.
Posted by Mark
at December 16, 2008 11:49 AM
comment #13
Nick Rogers
says ...
NotImpressed: I greatly enjoyed all the movies you mentioned, and that's a perfect description of "The Incredible Hulk." But this just looks like endless billowy slow-motion jump-flying nonsense, kind of like all those forest scenes in "Electra." I know Gavin Hood is not a hack - I'm one of the few who really liked "Rendition" - but I fear this might be something out of his control.
As to my fundamental problem with prequels, the two biggest problems are: A) zero suspense; and B) over-explanation of a character's origins that takes away too much of their mystique (no pun intended here).
Posted by Nick Rogers
at December 16, 2008 11:50 AM
comment #14
Rich S.
says ...
"Comic book movies have almost universally improved in the last three years."
Punisher: War Zone. Game, set, match.
Posted by Rich S.
at December 16, 2008 12:50 PM
comment #15
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
I did say "almost" you dumbass :) Feel free to bring up Fantastic Four next.
And Nick Rogers, my feeling is that the quality and sensibilities of the script and direction are about ten times more relevant than the whatever problems are associated with origin/prequel movies.
Not saying this is gonna be some masterpiece, but very well may turn out to be a competent, solid b to b+ comic book movie. Jackman is a great talent, and the studio went with Gavin Hood over a Ratner type for a reason. It's hard to see how it could possibly be worse than X-Men 3. What a travesty that was.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 16, 2008 1:30 PM
comment #16
Nick Rogers
says ...
NotImpressed: If it's worse than "X-Men 3," that would be some feat, indeed. I do, though, hope it's better than it looks to me based on that trailer and my thoughts about prequels.
Posted by Nick Rogers
at December 16, 2008 1:42 PM
comment #17
Rich S.
says ...
Ah, but Punisher: War Zone is such a gigantic exception that it kind of swallows your "almost" whole. :)
Besides, Fantastic Four (which I kind of liked as an antidote to all these "serious" super hero movie) came out in 2005, so you skate on that one. So I'll see it and raise you a Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007).
Posted by Rich S.
at December 16, 2008 1:43 PM
comment #18
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
Re: Punisher War Zone, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?
Unfortunately I have no adequate response for the FF4 franchise.
We'll just have to wait and see for Wolverine. I thought there was some cool shit in that trailer - the wide shot of him going into the helicopter was pretty sweet. If the movie's even just as good as Incredible Hulk, I'll be happy.
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 16, 2008 1:57 PM
comment #19
CMAC
says ...
Mark Says:
"Someone please settle an ongoing argument I'm having w/ my girlfriend. These 40ish stars, specifically Jackman and Daniel Craig, all do a cycle of roids before principal photography begins, right? 40ish stars with time, money, personel chefs, and personel trainers look like Matthew Perry. Add roids and you have Wolverine.
What's the consensus? My girlfriend's heart hangs in the balance."
Whether these boys use "help" when they are bulking up for films, I wouldn't know. But I do know that right out of the gate, the camera adds poundage. Period. Everything looks larger. And for those who think the new cameras lenses HD etc has changed that excess poundage thingy...it hasn't.
Why do you think the women and alot of men for that matter, in Hollywood get so thin? And will do ANYTHING to stay thin. Stallone looked huge on film. He wasn't THAT big. It's alot of tricks. Lighting, makeup, angles shot and simply the camera. It's an illuson.
What's kinda sad is when you see an actress who ON screen looks ridiculous skinny. (Angelina Jolie in "Wanted" for example, when she's walking away naked from the "recovery bath".) Now that chick is SKINNY. Whatever, I'm sure some find it sexy. The point is the camera adds pounds. All is not what it seems in real life.
And PS I know this for certain because this has been my life's work and the weight issue has and is the bain of my existence. Quelle Drag
Posted by CMAC
at December 16, 2008 2:57 PM
comment #20
BurmaShave
says ...
I liked the bootleg from ComicCon much more, not that it was that much different. Danny Huston and Liev Schreiber look to be the most inspired thing about this.
Posted by BurmaShave
at December 16, 2008 4:59 PM
comment #21
D.Z.
says ...
"Another Origin Tale"
That's the Wolverine series in a nut-shell. I just hope they don't de-claw him of his adamantium like they did in the comics in the 90s. That was just dumb.
Anyway, my only real gripe is that Gambit has a violet staff, since they seem to think that'll make those Star Wars geeks buy into it.
Rich: I think LG is just clueless right now, if those AICN reviews of The Spirit are any indiction. Silver Surfer delivered, at least, on the Silver Surfer part. Everything else was just bad fan-fiction, though.
NotImpressed: I liked Fantastic Four, but only compared to the Corman film. http://www.youtube.com/my_favorites#
Posted by D.Z.
at December 16, 2008 5:04 PM
comment #22
Chicago48
says ...
God I wish Hugh would get better roles. I guess he's just not far up the food chain to get the better scripts. He's a better actor than this.
Posted by Chicago48
at December 16, 2008 6:38 PM
comment #23
Rich S.
says ...
Okay, Ghost Rider (2007), and that's my final offer.
Posted by Rich S.
at December 16, 2008 7:33 PM
comment #24
D.Z.
says ...
Rich: Does that count as a bad comic movie or a bad Nick Cage movie?
Posted by D.Z.
at December 16, 2008 8:12 PM
comment #25
Nick Rogers
says ...
D.Z.: Both.
Rich: You could point to any year and find a crappy comic-book movie made by someone unwilling to take the stories to interesting, or even modestly entertaining, places. That hardly means a hole in NotImpressed's statement.
Posted by Nick Rogers
at December 16, 2008 9:35 PM
comment #26
Josh Massey
says ...
I'm still convinced if X:Men: The Last Stand had said "directed by Bryan Singer," a lot of the people who slam it would be singing its praises. It wasn't as good as its predecessor, but it wasn't a bad film.
Posted by Josh Massey
at December 17, 2008 5:17 AM
comment #27
BurmaShave
says ...
Massey is 100% correct.
Posted by BurmaShave
at December 17, 2008 6:24 AM
comment #28
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
Ratner apologists? X-Men 3 was terrible. A comic movie made by a guy who did not get it at all. Singer is capable of huge missteps (Superman Returns) but at least his films aspire to something besides being done on time and within budget to keep the studio happy.
But X-Men 3's biggest problem was that frankenstein screenplay. I heard in an interview that the screenwriters were dead set on doing the Phoenix story, and the studio was dead set on giving Wolverine and Storm as much screen time as possible, and through typical big moviemaking bullshit, we end up with a movie where Phoenix is a central character in the first half and then doesn't even have a speaking line for almost the entire second half. The screenplay was disjointed and made no sense that way. That's just the most glaring mistake in a movie filled with WTF stupid moments. For all of Singer's faults, do he think he would have associated himself with storytelling that terrible?
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 17, 2008 6:52 AM
comment #29
Rich S.
says ...
Hey, Nick, NotImpressed made the statement that "Comic book movies have almost universally improved in the last three years." Setting aside that it's kind of hard to qualify "universal" with "almost," that statement just isn't true.
The truth is, even taking Batman Begins, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Dark Knight and even Hellboy 2 into account, the bad, or at least mediocre, still far outweigh the good. Heck, I didn't even mention Hancock (2008), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Superman Returns (2006) or X-Men 3 (2006).
For some reason, people seem to think that The Dark Knight and/or Iron Man have provided some sort of "magic potion" to legitimize the genre. The sad fact is that TDK and Iron Man are pretty much the exceptions that prove the rule. I would say that Super Hero movies, maybe because of the inherent limitations of the genre, have always run about 25% good to 75% bad/mediocre. That's probably close to the ratio of movies on the whole, by the way. The last three years haven't changed that, and I doubt the next 100 will, either.
Posted by Rich S.
at December 17, 2008 7:01 AM
comment #30
D.Z.
says ...
NotImpressed: "Singer is capable of huge missteps (Superman Returns) but at least his films aspire to something besides being done on time and within budget to keep the studio happy."
I don't see that with Valkyrie.
"we end up with a movie where Phoenix is a central character in the first half and then doesn't even have a speaking line for almost the entire second half."
And the same could be said for Superman.
"For all of Singer's faults, do he think he would have associated himself with storytelling that terrible?"
I just gave an above example. But there's also Apt Pupil, if that makes you feel better.
Posted by D.Z.
at December 17, 2008 7:28 PM
comment #31
NotImpressed1Yet
says ...
Imagine a world in which D.Z.'s opinions held sway...
Posted by NotImpressed1Yet
at December 18, 2008 4:42 PM