'The Wolverine' - Movie Review

This poster was so popular in America that people were stealing it!

L et's just  admit it, we really just want to see two things from Wolverine - his shiny finger nails blades, and his ability to "regenerate" faster than a performance-enhanced Lance Armstrong. (Although... there is something about those mutton chops... and those freakishly large biceps, which probably weigh more than Wolvie's Japanese counterparts in the film!) 

'Tis the season to level entire cities! And in a move which attempts to break an old cliche - where cities are only leveled after a dramatic two hour build up - the leveling in The Wolverine comes in less than 5 minutes. Opening in war-time Nagasaki, Japan, we follow a group of Japanese soldiers who have just spotted a B-29 bomber which will drop the bomb - 'Fat Man' - on Nagasaki. And what a terrifying site it is to watch this historical event unfold before our eyes!

By the end of this stunning opening scene/flashback, we are left to debate whether this leveling can be mentioned in the same breath as Metropolis's destruction in Man of Steel, and pretty much every densely populated city in Pacific Rim. 

In a few seconds Wolverine will resemble a well done t-bone steak...

This is Hugh Jackman's sixth go-round as Logan/Wolverine, which happens to be the most caps by any superhero actor to date. Yes, it seems Hugh and Logan have something going on. And it'll astound readers to know that before Hugh became the bad-ass-with-blades, he was waltzing around Broadway and appearing in remakes of Oklahoma!  How many actors sport that kind of versatility? Oh, and if we lift our eyes back up to Hugh's rippling bicep, then it appears that the 44-year-old Jackman is only getting fitter and finer as time goes by. And while Wolverine's 2009 Origin may have missed the mark, this latest installment appears to be an entertaining introduction to Logan's past and his post-X-Men life. 

In The Wolverine we first find the hairy mutant chained (and of course shirtless) at the bottom of a dank sewer in Nagasaki. And after a cavalier Japanese soldier frees Wolverine, so that he may attempt to flee, Wolvie returns the favour and stops the Japanese soldier from committing hara-kiri. 

But wait a second, didn't they have Wolverine invading Normandy in X-Men Origin?! I guess he could've hauled ass from Normandy to Nagasaki... in less than a year... but it's doubtful. I guess we have to give James Mangold the benefit of the doubt.

After Wolverine appears to save the Japanese soldier from being burnt to a crisp, we jump to present day Canada, where Wolverine is doing his best Samson-in-the-cave impersonation. Surrounded by local boof-head hunters and threatening grizzlies, Wolverine seems more tormented by his lost love than his harsh surroundings. Yet while I have grown tired of the personal sufferings of superheroes, Wolverine's suffering does strike a chord of intrigue and familiarity. When it comes to love it seems superheroes don't seem to fair too well...

Poor Bruce Wayne hasn't faired so well, the Hulk has always found it hard to hold down a steady relationship, Thor has the long distance thing going on, Supes is too busy being advised by his father's holograms, and Iron Man can only really have a relationship with a mirror. 

Jean is negligee'd up in The Wolverine... and apparently very lonely in the afterlife.

Wolvie too is swept up in the suffering, due to his gut wrenching decision to kill his only love - Jean Grey (X-Men flashback). As a result, a dolled up Jean keeps entering Wolvie's dreams, begging for him to join her in what appears to be a lonely afterlife. And so Wolverine retreats into solitude and swears off killing... that is until one of the local boofheads shoots a grizzly with an illegally poisoned arrow. It's now, when Logan is tracking down the boofhead, that we discover that our hero is being watched and followed by a Japanese ninja chick, Yukio. 

It turns out Yukio (Rila Fukushima) has been sent by the Japanese soldier in Nagasaki - who is now your stereotypical Japanese technology mogul - to bring Wolverine back to Japan, so that the dying man can pay his final respects.

Yukio is a character with umph ... but she disappears for far too much of the film.

It had to be Japan, right? If Wolverine was going to be whisked away, it had to be to Japan - a nation described by Hugh as having "a rich history of family and honour and code." All of which Wolverine appears to oppose!

Director James Mangold and writers Mark Bomback and Scott Frank have wisely followed the Wolverine comic series here and stuck to Japan for the film's setting. This was partly done so that we could be taken back to Logan's roots as an outsider. And in many ways this movie does a better job serving as an origin film than it does in progressing Wolverine's story past the X-Men days. In choosing Japan, the movie is also cloaked in a certain mystique and interest which Americana superhero movies miss out on.

Traditional Japan, meet the mutton chops!

Seeing Wolvie embroiled in what proves to be a truly Japanese power struggle - which spans three generations of the Yashida family and involves the likes of corrupt politicians, ninjas, samurai wannabes and Yakuza thugs - is all we need to be entertained. And the comical sequences, which revolve around this idea of Wolverine being a fish out of water, are a nice touch in a movie which has been described as "dark". Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for ruthless grandmas with scrubbing brushes... and a kinky love hotel!

Yet like so many superhero/action movies, the first half of The Wolverine is intriguing and written with flair, while the second half reverts back to plot mechanics and absurdity. The action scenes in the first half - led by the Yakuza, who put the 'fun' in funeral, and a particularly unrealistic but terrifically exciting bullet-train battle -  show that we don't need to binge on CGI explosions to be entertained. And compared to the last action scene - which is dumb, convoluted and spoils an otherwise subtly told story - the first half shows the way forward for future X-Men and Wolverine projects. 

Bullet train fun!

Wherever Wolverine is, mutants appear to follow! And in this installment we are introduced to Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova - say that five times fast, or just once properly!) - the buxom blonde palliative care nurse of your dreams. Yet looks can be deceiving, as nurse Viper has a particularly long and devastating tongue, which she uses to put away many a men. There's something ordinary about Viper however, you just get the sense that you've seen this act before. And soon enough we find out that the only reason Viper is in the movie is to stop Wolverine from regenerating at a rapid speed. But hey, the playing field had to be leveled somehow if we are to seriously question whether Wolverine will win the day. 

 

The Japanese cast delivers, but was the love story between the heiress, Mariko, and Wolverine needed? It's outside of the Yashida family that the most promising Japanese roles are found, specifically in the ninja pairing of Yukio and Harada (Will Yun Lee). They both bring intrigue and excitement to the movie, even if they do disappear for large amounts of the movie.

"Harada has a complicated and painful past that puts him in a very complex relationship, not only with Logan and Mariko, but with the larger plot that unfolds. He provokes and challenges Logan in new ways. This is not the kind of circumstance Logan has ever found himself in." Producer, Hutch Parker. 

It certainly didn't finish with the bang it started with...

Brooding and uncompromising, the Clint Eastwood of mutants appears to be here to stay. And even if his solo outings haven't reached the lofty heights of the Dark Knight franchise, expect the hunky 44-year old Jackman to continue to wake up at 4a.m. for those Wolverine workout sessions from hell! 

6.5/10

P.S. Don't leave the cinema in a hurry!

You're welcome, ladies.