Hugh Jackman returns as Logan, better known as Wolverine in the X-Men universe. He is living as a hermit in the Canadian wilderness, haunted by the visions and the memory of Jean Grey (Logan was forced to kill her at the end of "X-Men: The Last Stand"). He is found by Yukio, a mutant who has the power to forsee people's deaths. She then transports him to Japan where he has come face to face with and old ghost of his past: a man named Ichiro Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), whom Logan saved during the bombing of Nagasaki during World War II. Now an old man, he asks Wolverine for his help to protect his granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto) from forces after her for an unknown reason. Yashida, wanting to repay his life's debt to logan made him an offer to heal Logan's immortality and transfer the power into his own body. Logan refuses and Yashida dies soon after. A bizarre dream soon follows in which he is "treated" by Dr. Green, the deadly Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) in disguise as Yashida's physician.Mariko is kidnapped at her grandfather's funeral and Logan is shot. Logan however, has been wounded and is not healing as quickly as he should. He must race to keep Mariko safe and find out what strange transformation his body is going through.
Energized by the film's foreign setting and new batch of characters, "The Wolverine" is the most refreshing superhero picture this year. James Mangold is the latest director to tackle an "X-Men" film and he does so with as much focus on character as his previous efforts: "Walk the Line", the remake of "3:10 to Yuma", and "Girl, Interrupted." Much of the work is done for him with Hugh Jackman returning to play everybody's favorite on screen X-Man. Jackman, by this point, must know the character better than some of the writers who've written Wovlerine in the comic books over the years. He swears, fights, and loves in a way that's all his own, yet at the same time, pays great homage to the character in the comic book.
Another fun aspect of the "X-Men" pictures is the way they're cast. In this film, we get a majority of unknown actors, making us see the characters as opposed to the actors portraying them. Tao Okamoto is fantastic as Mariko, a woman who is forced into an extraordinary situation that is beyond her comprehension. However, the scenes in which she is forced to be dramatic, she falls a little flat. I personally felt that when she didn't say much at all, she shined on screen letting her body, facial expressions, and actions do all of the talking. She is juxtaposed by her brother in the film, Shingen Yashida, played by Hiroyuki Sanada. Also, the Black Ninja Clan who is sworn to protech the Yashida family is pissed because of the death of Ichiro Yashida, the siblings grandfather.
Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper in "The Wovlerine"
That's right ladies and gentlemen, Wolverine fights ninjas in this picture. This is where the film really stood out and breathed to me. However, the Japanese geography unfortunately couldn't save this film from falling into usual mindless blockbuster territory in its third act. The typical fight between the hero and villain must happen in these films unfortunately, but in it's defense, it's the first film in the Superhero genre that doesn't have a major city being destroyed in its climax (this film greatly ignored what I call "The Avenger Effect"). However, back to the third act.
The charcter of Viper is pretty weak. As the saying goes, a story is only as good as its villain, isn't kept in mind here. Bad guys are spread pretty thin between the Black Ninja Clan, Viper, the Jean Grey dreams, and some other sthat shouldn't be mentioned to avoid spoiling anything. But back to "Dr. Green", we enver get a proper arc to who she is. She just sort of appears and does her thing, something the film in no way benefits from. Another pitfall is it's somewhat decent script written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank. I thought there were plenty of scenes in which the dialogue could've been tighter and the pace a little more directed, particularly the scenes in which Logan and Mariko become romantically interested in each other. Luckily, when you have an actor as great as Hugh Jackman, it's easy to miss those sorts of things.
Credit must be given to James Mangold for making this movie something more than what was on the page. His first foray into blockbuster filmmaking is not bad. He communicates his ideas very interestingly. Mangold takes the superhero and moves him from major cities and places him in very interesting places that haven't been done in quite the way he attempted them. We do see our hero in a big city, but Wolverine can't fly, run at incredible speeds or stop bullets. Mangold takes him and puts him in the middle of the metropolis that is Tokyo, the sloping and jagged curves of the Japanese countryside, and right in the middle of the bombing of Nagasaki.
Though not the best superhero movie made, "The Wolverine" was the best Superhero picture made this year thanks to James Mangold's direction, Hugh Jackman's performance, and a surprise plot twist revealed in a mid-credits scene (don't stop watching when the credits roll!). The action set pieces are fantastic (Wovlerine fights ninja trained warriors on top of a high speed train - that's all I need to state), and the exploration of what it means to be human returns as is so frequently in the "X-Men" pictures.
7/10
Rated PG-13
Directed James Mangold
Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank
Runtime - 126 minutes
6.8 of 10 stars on IMDb
69% on Rotten Tomatoes
Extended Unrated Edition on Blu-Ray from Amazon
Theatrical edition on Blu-Ray from Amazon
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