Following the Wolverine teaser trailer and cinematic release date announced at the end of 2012, Marvel returned with a full length trailer in March 2013 in the run up to the release of The Wolverine in July, along with more images from the upcoming film. Hugh Jackman was innevitably in the starring role once again and a Japanese samurai setting added to expectations for a lot of action to be packed into the movie.
The trailer seemed to imply that some of Hugh’s efforts on Les Miserables had been carried forward into his portrayal of the adamantium clawed X-Men character with much more pain and loss coming across than the ferocity of previous films. He even looks more like Jean Valjean at times than he does Logan, with his long hair and incarceration in a military camp lock-up in Japan as a prisoner of war.
The story picks up on Wolverine as he’s hiding away from the memory of killing Jean in the process of stopping the disintegrating powers of Pheonix. Broken and angry he’s quick to lash out until he’s asked to journey to Japan to allow a man who’s life he once saved to thank him. However, in the process he faces a new battle and the reality of vulnerability for the first time in his life with katana blades flashing all around him.
Released on the 26th July 2013, The Wolverine is a fresh take on the X-Man’s storyline with less emphasis on saving the world and more on the characters and microcosm threats of Japan’s criminal underworld. Wolverine goes up against a number of other characters from the the original comic book series, including Yakuza big boss Shingen Yashida, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) and The Silver Samurai. Emotions run high as Logan battles with his loss and guilt while dealing with a potential new relationship with Yashida’s daughter, Mariko.
The movie was directed by James Mangold of Walk the Line fame, so the question of how well he’ll make the transition from Jonny Cash biography to sci-fi action movie was pretty high up the agenda at the time of the trailer’s release. However, the 2007 Russell Crowe and Christian Bale western, 3:10 to Yuma, was probably quite a good set-up to giving The Wolverine story a bit more of a serious battle to face.
You can find out what we our take on the movie is at our The Wolverine DVD review page.
The Wolverine full length trailer:
The Wolverine images:
