Wolverine: The James Mangold Restoration, The

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9.2 (22)
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Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.6(22)
Audio Editing
 
9.5(22)
Visual Editing
 
9.4(22)
Narrative
 
8.6(22)
Enjoyment
 
9.0(22)
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(Updated: September 15, 2022)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
First of all, I wanted to thank Silver Screen Samurai and Wakeupkeo for doing their best to try to bring The Wolverine as close as originally intended by James Mangold. Stories of directors who gets their visions butchered by studios for mainly pecuniary interests is such a common thing, that it's always satisfying to see editors doing justice to the original vision of directors.

Now as for Wolverine, The James Mangold Restoration, I didn't know about the original intention of the movie, definitely felt the Japanese neo-noir influence and the Frank Miller inspiration, but didn't thought that the entire 3rd act was artificially grafted. Since it was always the weakest part of the film in my opinion, the idea of this edit to get rid of it, along with Viper, in order to be more grounded, got my attention.
The audio and video quality were top notch, watched it on TV, not a single flaw. Concerning the video editing, The cuts were flawless, the removal of Viper and the several lines of dialogues were unnoticeable at all. But the final transition on the other hand felt a little too abrupt.

Edit: I updated my review due to the release of the v2, which improved considerably the narrative of the film. But I'm still nitpicking over the ending (sorry), I think it would be smoother if the transition between the climax and the epilogue was set right after the dream sequence and not with Logan running toward that building. Awesome edit anyway. Without a doublt my definitive version of the film.

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(Updated: October 18, 2022)
Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
I want to start with a major shout out to Wakeupkeo for picking this up when the original editor Silver Screen Samurai was unable to continue due to life happening. It shows a lot of character to reach out and help someone finish a dream project.

As for the edit, the quality was pretty flawless. I felt the removal of Viper really helped the flow of the movie and gives the movie a much needed streamline approach.

The V2 of this edit helps the ending quite a bit too. The Ninjas feel a bit more in place and not out of nowhere like in V1. I would say this is a recommend for sure.

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(Updated: November 08, 2022)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
While I'm certainly glad that CGI mess of a third act was removed, there were still some minor issues with the narrative stemming from its removal. In the theatrical, the robot bug was placed in Logan's body by Viper. In this edit, how it got there was a mystery because of Viper's removal from the narrative.

I liked that the fight with the ninjas and Harada was re-contextualized to be almost like a fight between suitors of Mariko's affections- as Harada was a former lover of her's- but Harada's fate was never revealed in this edit, though it could be presumed Logan had killed him.

The transition from the snowblower explosion to the final dream sequence with Jean Grey was well done, but it took me a couple of rewatches of the scene to get that Logan had caused the explosion to take out the ninjas, then it knocked him out long enough for him to have his vision of Jean, and then he recovered to get Mariko, which then transitioned to the airport scene.

Overall, a very well done edit, but I feel removing some of the characters and removing the original third act and replacing it with the new one created its own share of narrative problems. It's still very much recommended, and I enjoyed it much more than the original.

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Overall rating
 
7.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
I will start by saying that I really liked the original, despite not enjoying much the third act. The tone was almost completely out of place compared to the previous two acts, but still, I enjoyed a lot the "Ronin" take on the Wolverine.

Now, when it comes to the edit, up until the moment where Logan kills Shingen, I loved it! I was thinking, no way, these guys actually did it and have restored the original vision of the director! Granted, the first two acts were the "easy part", but still, it gave me the impression that the third act will fall in line. The editing was superb, audio the same and the changes that were made were most welcome. Particularly I was pleasantly surprised with the seamless removal of the action sequence in the love hotel and how it went from Logan passing out at the balcony, straight to the part where the son of the hotel owner is removing Logan's bullets. Also, no more Viper ;)

But then, we went to the third act where I was really really surprised, and not in a good way, about what was done. First of all, the edit from Logan removing the sword from his chest to the pagoda where his next destination was, was abrupt. Then, we have an awkward sequence of Harada saying something to Mariko and trying to kiss her and then we go straight to the fight with him, the ninjas and Wolverine. As it turns out, it was the final battle, where yet again there is another abrupt cut of Wolverine and Jean, which leads as to the scene of the plane where Logan is leaving and saying goodbye to Mariko. The end.

I never saw this coming. In my mind, the way this edit was going, I was sure of one of two things would happen, either the final battle would be with Shingen, which I would had loooved if that was the case, or they would have heavily trimmed the Silver Samurai sequence. Well, I was wrong on both accounts. I don't know about you guys, but if the final battle was Shingen vs Wolverine, it would have been perfect. Obviously, you would need to remove the "come and get her" scene and find some in-between scenes to connect the end of the battle with the scene at the airport, but I think it's possible, even if we get a couple of abrupt cuts to achieve that.

The only reason I recommend this edit is for people who absolutely cannot stand the third act of the movie and for the excellent work that was done with the first two. For me, I think I will stick with the original version..

Thank you guys for reading my review and a big thank you to Silver Screen Samurai and Wakeupkeo for all their hard work!

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Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Never seen either of the official cuts, bought the Blu-ray for the sole purpose of seeing this edit after watching Wraith's "Requiem War" distillation of the original trilogy about a year ago. From the cutlist it sounds as either this or Wakeupkeo's newly-produced "Mangold Extended Edit" will be my go-to versions, it's so refreshing to have a more grounded story than that typical of the genre nowadays, which I been weary of for a good few years.

Technical aspects all looked and sounded good, great quality to my eyes and ears (LQ v3 with 6 GB file and 317 kbps audio) with no ugly cuts that I noticed. The only thing I was a little surprised at was the relatively quick conclusion to the final fight, but maybe that is result of being conditioned to examples that occupy much more significant fractions of a film's runtime.

Thanks to both the creators for putting this together, seems to me so far that this franchise is best experienced through edits!

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