Liquefied ninjas! That’s what The Wolverine was missing! It seems so obvious in retrospect, but the new unrated cut – The Wolverine: Unleashed – proves it was the vital component that the film needed to achieve greatness… or at least an R-rating.
Having seen this new R-rated cut, I can say that The Wolverine: Unleashed is not a considerably different film than the theatrical version. A few short new scenes flesh out the supporting cast more – particularly Hiroyuki Sanada as Shingen – but mostly the additions are short bursts of violence, a little more swearing (“Don’t be a dick” is particularly good in context), and of course a scene where Yukio liquefies ninjas. It’s not important to the plot… if anything it actually the drags the pacing down… but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. My original review of The Wolverine still stands, but suffice it to say, The Wolverine: Unleashed is the version I’ll be watching from now on.
At a special screening on the Fox Lot in Century City, director James Mangold was on hand to talk about his first superhero movie (and not, reportedly, the last, although he was hesitant to talk about Wolverine 3 in any detail). We talked about some of the best (and worst) poster art The Wolverine had available, why the MPAA won’t give Unleashed a rating, why he worried that ninja motorcycles on rooftops might have crossed the line, and why Yukio wasn’t in the mid-credits teaser for X-Men: Days of Future Past.
We pick up my interview with James Mangold already in progress, as we discuss the Blu-ray cover art for The Wolverine: Unleashed, made up into fancy posters for the theatrical screening.
CraveOnline: That is a cool poster, isn’t it?
James Mangold: Yeah, I’ve been happy with the artwork on this movie.
I prefer that one to the one where he’s Photoshopped, and he’s exploding with ninjas.
Which one? There are several…
That hardly made an appearance. It got so annihilated by fans so quickly.
Sorry. I was one of those.
[Laughs] Yes, you were one of those. But yes, I definitely prefer… I prefer the inked [posters] to almost anything. I thought it was really cool.
It was really classy.
Yeah.
So this is the “Unleashed” cut. Do you prefer “Extended Cut,” “Director’s Cut” or just “Unleashed Cut?”
They’re all my cut. I decided what’s in this one and I decided what was released. So I wish I could come up with a more definitive answer, but the fact is that… I don’t know. I don’t call them “unleashed.” I don’t finish in the cutting room [and say] “That’s our unleashed cut!” But I think that’s basically our “Guaranteed R” cut.
The reality with ratings, the reason they don’t just say – not many people know this, so I’m always explaining – the reason… I can say this, Fox can’t. The reason they don’t say it’s an R-rated version is they can’t. You can’t have multiple ratings of the same movie. It’s against the MPAA rules.
Bastards.
Yes. So the reality is you can only have the version of the movie that wasn’t getting a PG-13, so guess what it would have gotten?
