New 'Wolverine' trailer: Another deep dive

“Eternity can be a curse. A franchise can run out of things to do.” That’s paraphrasing a line in the new trailer for The Wolverine, a.k.a. The Bad News Mutants Go to Japan. Between this and X-Men: Days of Future Past, Hugh Jackman will be snikt-ing out the adamantium digits for both a reboot of a spinoff of a threequel and a sequel to a prequel to said threequel. Is it any wonder the main theme of James Mangold’s film seems to be the painful burden of going on forever and ever without end? The first trailer definitely made clear that Wolverine’s mortality is central here—along with the whole Black Rain vibe—but the latest gets into a little more detail and features a longer look at some of the film’s villains. Let’s take a gander.

Famke Janssen popped up briefly in the first trailer as Wolverine’s old squeeze, but the new one starts off with an extended dream sequence featuring the late Jean Grey. Logan’s clearly feeling guilty for killing the woman he loved, and for nothing more than a Brett Ratner movie. He promises never to hurt anyone ever again, but she tells him it’s too late. Then he looks down and sees something (I assume it’s a spider) that totally makes him freak out.

“Aaagh! A spider!”

He then wakes up looking all Jeremiah Johnson-y, clearly having spent sometime in the hinterlands, probably as a lumberjack. This raises an important question: How does Wolverine’s beard know not to regenerate? Or maybe it doesn’t and he has to shave every ten minutes or so, which means this is just his equivalent of a 5 o’clock shadow.

Ah, the redneck bar. The kind of place Wolverine first met Anna Paquin’s Rogue in the original film (which came out thirteen years ago, just in case you were wondering.) And also the kind of place where a bunch of goons will inevitably get cocky and try to one-up the man with indestructible bones. Note the flannel: A telltale sign we’re in Canada.

Yukio, the mysterious katana-wielding young woman, arrives to take Wolverine off on an all-expenses paid vacation to Japan, but not before she swings her super-sharp blade around and slices apart a chair and the bottom of a beer bottle. Note the sign in the background that says “CANADIAN”: An even more telltale sign we’re in Canada. Although if that’s the case, I’m not sure why the dude in the camouflage is wearing all that bronzer.

This trailer has the first good look at Shingen Yashida, a syndicate boss and foe of Wolverine played by Twilight Samurai-star (and Sunshine-costar) Hiroyuki Sanada. In the original Chris Claremont/Frank Miller comics, Wolverine falls for his daughter Mariko, played in the movie by Tao Okamoto, so we can probably expect some complicated family dynamics. Both Okamoto and Rila Fukushima, who plays Yukio, are models who have never been in a feature film before this so, uh, keep that in mind.

Here’s Logan looking in the mirror and feeling not-so-hot as a result of his newfound mortality, which also forces him to experience bed-hair for the first time.

This shot of the Silver Samurai was also included in the international version of the first trailer. In the comics, the man under the armor is Kenuichio Harada, illegitimate son of Shingen Yashida. He’s named the Silver Samurai because he’s silver-colored and he’s a samurai. (Comic book naming conventions are pretty straightforward.)

And here’s super-robot-funtime Silver Samurai from the end of the trailer. He makes the same sound Transformers do and may or may not be Voltron-ed together from various parts. In any case, for those of you who always complain that Hollywood doesn’t have enough giant robot samurais, what do you have to say now?

Here Wolverine fights a village of ninjas shooting a bunch of arrows into his back.

Here Wolverine fights a gang from a mid-’80s Michael Jackson music video.

Viper isn’t here to vipe and vash the vindows. The serpentine villainess is played by Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova and ostensibly has more powers than simply looking good in a green skintight suit. Here she licks poison onto what appears to be an arrowhead. (I imagine she’s a hit with the ladies.) Luckily I’m sure that’s the grossest thing about her.

Oh, wait, nope.

Nope.

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