Wolverine: The James Mangold Restoration, The

QUALITY

I'll get the most negative aspect over with right away: the audio quality was very poor. I'm surprised to see no one has mentioned this, so I don't know if this is the case across the other versions, but I did ask before downloading and was told that the file types were just there as a matter of preference. I saw the Version 3 MKV and it sounded like the audio had gone through two too many phases of compression. I notice that the bitrate is 128kb/s which is way too low anyway for what is being presented as a blu-ray equivalent, but there's definitely something more than that at play from the sound of things. While the quality generally sounded brittle, the sound of rain and loud action scenes betrayed obvious artefacts which were not pleasant to listen to.

In terms of visual quality, this largely looked very good. There's the odd darker shot where quite a bit of compression is noticeable, but more often than not everything looks clean and crisp, although not on par with what I'd expect from the file size.

Since this was a collab with some work being done by SS and some by Keo, I wonder if some of this is a result of passing compressed files back and forth? This is purely speculative though.


VISUAL

One tiny niggle is the opening text, giving context for the concept of the edit. This is nicely written and gives clear reasoning, but it's dumped in large blocks that go by much too fast to read. The name of "James Mangold" also just suddenly appears on screen instead of fading in with the quote like everything else, which I assumed to be a small oversight.

A larger thing is a re-purposed dream sequence with various bits of added sound design and quick visual cuts going on (at around 32:45). I remember it being trialled when the edit was in-the-works and there was something about it that jarred with me then, even though I liked the idea. Seeing it in the context of the edit made it seem all the more 'fanedity' to me. Other than this, there was nothing bad that stood out from a visual editing perspective and obviously a lot of the transitions work very well.


AUDIO

Mostly good across the board, though there were a few cuts that sounded slightly unnatural to me. Mostly in the first half of the film:

- 23:09
- 33:21
- 39:45 (there is a jump in the audio)
- 50:08
- 53:00-53:10 (this is an odd edit simply because a music cue fades in then immediately fades out again)
- 1:27:07

Note that I viewed this on a surround system. Some of these come across a lot better in stereo.


NARRATIVE

I have only seen The Wolverine once, so in some cases I'm not sure if narrative weaknesses lie with the theatrical cut or not. Largely this is more or less coherent, but it also just seemed a bit vague to me in regard to motivations etc. While the bigger picture of a girl on the run with Logan as protector was clear, I always felt like there was some context missing. This may have been an issue with the original, I can't be sure, but that's how it felt to me.

The mystery of why Logan has a machine attached to his heart is both baffling and also jars with the stated concept of the edit (to keep things grounded and avoid added science fiction elements, as per Mangold's intent). That being said, the film does largely come across as a grounded thriller that happens to star Wolverine, and I did find this refreshing. Arguably it makes it slightly mundane and underwhelming as an X-Men entry, but I preferred it to the mecha madness we get at the end of the theatrical cut.

Funnily enough, compared to most others, I don't really consider the end to be all that anti-climactic. We get two big action sequences, one of which is with the only person we've been presented with as a villain during the course of the movie. What IS abrupt is the transition from "end of battle" to "all's well that ends well"; we just get a whiteout as the smoke clears and then we're at the airport, waving goodbye. Technically, I thought this came across quite well, but you can tell scenes have been skipped over. Still, it's nowhere near as jarring or unnatural as I thought it would be based on reviews. A much larger issue in my view is that our "main baddie" is done away with, and then our final battle is with someone I didn't even recognise. I think they were present at the funeral? But beyond that, I didn't know who they were supposed to be or why they were significant. The fiance also seems underdeveloped. Logan says he "seems like an asshole" but I didn't recall them ever having a scene together, then when we next see him it's Logan breaking into his room to interrogate him.


ENJOYMENT

The audio quality is the biggest flaw for me, and something I was surprised to encounter. If that wasn't an issue, I would probably consider this preferable to watching the theatrical, despite some narrative confusion. But hearing audio artefacts and how brittle everything is during loud action scenes was grating and distracted from my enjoyment quite a bit.

Thank you to both of the editors for the experience and I'm sorry I can't be more positive. I hope the audio can be improved in a future version (assuming it's not a fluke in the particular file I have).

It makes A LOT of difference when you take away the more "fantastic" elements from the film to create a more somber, focused and intense action thriller. I really liked how the edit seems quite seamless at almost every point and the elegance and ingenuity used to make sense of the changes. Very, VERY good edit.