How Many Times Am I Supposed To Care About Wolverine?

Last week, a trailer for The Wolverine: Reloaded: The Re-Up was finally released…and no one cared. I mean, of course it made the rounds on the blogesphere but did you actually care? You may have, but did it excite you the way the trailers for Star Trek, Kick-Ass 2, and dare I say, Man Of Steel, did? Probably not.

If you know me or have been following this dog & pony show I call a blog for a while, you know I am a very big X-Men fan. It’s my favourite comic/superhero movie and X-Men: Days Of Future Past is my most anticipated movie of the next 2 years (for real). With that said, I have no f-cks for The Wolverine. I’ll be there opening night, of course, and it looks fine, but how many times am I supposed to care about Wolverine – a character with a rich backstory but who is so uninteresting at his core, I don’t care. Wolverine is as uninteresting to me as Superman is, and that says a lot because with each day I get more and more excited for Man Of Steel (and some people have already seen it and the buzz is good).

Maybe, then, that is my problem with Wolverine/The Wolverine. How many times can we keep revisiting one character? I know there have been several Batman and Spider-Man movies, but there is something about Wolverine, and the countless times now that Jackman has played him, where this is just retreading the same territory at this point. I think we’ve all decided to block out X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Ryan Reynolds clearly has) and this seems to be a re-do of sorts (and an apology to the fans) but does it even need to exist?

Truth be told, if it weren’t for Jackman, I’d care even less. Not only was/is his casting as Wolverine the most perfect casting decision of all time (hyperbole noted) but his commitment to the role is endearing and the only reason I will show up to this. Lose Jackman, you lose the audience and I think the studio knows this.