Japan's Not Our Enemy Anymore...

THE WOLVERINE-2013-After saving the life of a Japanese officer from the A-bomb in WW 2,

Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is living alone in a forest. When he gets into trouble at a local bar he meets Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who says she wants to take Logan to Japan so an old dying industrialist Yoshida (Haruhiko Yama-nouchi), the officer Logan saved can say goodbye to him. Once there Yoshida offers to transfer Wolverine's “immortality" to his body and let Logan live a normal life span. After Yoshida dies there's a big shoot up at his funeral and Yukio's granddaughter is kidnapped by  The Yakuza. Logan is shot several times but recovers and saves the daughter. They go on the run which of course leads up to the inevitable sex she has to have with the “far superior gaijin”. Later a bunch of ninjas capture the granddaughter and a stupid white woman kills her father (Hiroyuki Sanada). After Logan operates on himself,  a super metallic robot shows up but do you really think it would pose much of a threat to the powerful white westerner? 

Their fight though kind of reminded me of THE AZTEC MUMMY VS. THE ROBOT! Of course Yoshida, though thought dead is actually behind the whole thing. I didn't expect the after credits appearances of Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. 

Director James Mangold (GIRL,INTERRUPTED) later made LOGAN also featuring the Wolverine character.

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X-Prequel

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE-This is a kind of useless prequel to the first X-Men movie. It shows Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as a child experiment and how he and his brother (Liev Schreiber) fought in many wars throughout history. In the modern age, a military colonel named Stryker (Danny Huston) forms a mercenary team with them a few other mutants. Eventually, Logan has enough and leaves. Later, bro Victor starts killing his ex-team mates and Stryker wants Logan to stop him. The weird climatic fight seems like a scene from a video game and Kevin Durand as The Blob was a bad idea. Patrick Stewart even shows up at the end. Also with Lynn Collins, Dominic Monaghan.

Director Gavin Hood (from South Africa) also made TSOTSI.

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Make Mine Marvel! Part 3

X-MEN 3: LAST STAND-2006-Although I read a lot of bad reviews for this hit second sequel I really enjoyed it. There are some rough spots but what movie is perfect? Nearly everyone returns including top billed Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Halle Berry as Storm, Patrick Stewart as Prof. X and Ian McKellan as Magneto. Famke Jansen's Jean Grey is even resurrected as Dark Phoenix. Kelsey Grammer is The Beast. Michael Murphy is a scientist who has invented a cure for mutants. Magneto (acting more like the comic book version than ever before) doesn’t like it and puts together a mutant army to overthrow the world. The finale is great. 

Director Brett Ratner helmed all three RUSH HOUR movies and made many music videos early in his career. He was the executive producer of the first season of TV’s PRISON BREAK. 

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