The Wolverine: Footage Screened and James Mangold Interview

IGN was among a handful of outlets this past April to visit the editing bay of The Wolverine and screen roughly 15 minutes of footage from the film and chat with the Marvel-Fox movie's director, James Mangold.

Please be advised that this article contains some SPOILERS, but nothing more than have been revealed in the film's trailers if you've watched them.

Mangold screened a good chunk of the first act for the press (as well as a good portion of the Japanese bullet train battle scene) and the bottom line is that The Wolverine plays like a much different film than either X-Men Origins: Wolverine or the X-Men movies. The first act opens in a Japanese POW camp during World War II where an imprisoned Logan (Hugh Jackman) saves officer Yashida from one of the atomic blasts that forced Japan's surrender. Yashida witnesses Logan's healing powers firsthand as they restore his burned flesh and hair to normal. Needless to say, this is a sight (and a sacrifice) Yashida won't forget. The story then jumps forward nearly 70 years to find Logan as a bedraggled mountain man living a hermetic life in the wilderness and still mourning and dreaming about his beloved Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). He returns to civilization (well, a small rural town) to confront some hunters who cruelly left an animal behind in agony, a beast Logan reluctantly puts out of its misery. Logan tracks these good ol' boys down to a local saloon where, in true Western style, he shows them why they shouldn't have pissed him off.

This is when he meets Yukio (Rila Fukushima), an enigmatic young woman sent all the way from Japan to locate him. Yukio is there on behalf of the now elderly, dying Yashida who wants to repay Logan for saving his life all those decades before. Logan, being the misanthrope that he is, doesn't want to go until Yukio tells him that Yashida has a way to ease the pain he's long carried. Logan begrudgingly agrees and joins Yukio aboard Yashida's private jet (he evidently gets a makeover back into his old self during the flight to Japan).

We were then shown a good chunk of the battle between Logan and a Yakuza assassin atop a bullet train speeding through Japan. You've seen some of the highlights of this set-piece in the trailers so we won't give away anything more from it.

Overall, The Wolverine had a more subdued tone than any of Logan's past screen exploits. Jackman is damn near silent throughout the entire first half of Act One, and the austere, grim vibe of the piece is reminiscent of the solemnity of the 1980s Chris Claremont/Frank Miller comic book storyline upon which the film is based. Even though we've only seen a small potion of the final film, that alone was already leagues better than either X-Men Origins: Wolverine or X-Men: The Last Stand.

Continue on for new posters from the film and our chat with director James Mangold about the making of The Wolverine ...

Source : ign[dot]com