After so many years of delays, The Wolverine has finally been released. After the mediocre outing that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which in essence cancelled the whole origin movie series, Fox has finally given us a movie that we can enjoy. Now, there are some changes between the series of comics by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller that much of the story is based on, but that is always the case when you are dealing with a big budget studio tentpole.
The film opens up with moments leading up to the World War Two bombing of Nagasaki, when Logan (Hugh Jackman) saves the life of his Japanese guards from the oncoming blast. Years later, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) wishes to repay the debt by offering a trade to Logan. Give him his regeneration powers in exchange for Logan to live a normal life. Have a family and grow old and someday die.
Logan hasn't been doing well since he is living in the aftermath of Jean Grey's (Famke Janssen) death in X-Men: The Last Stand, which he is still being haunted by dreams of her. After the death of Yashida, Logan prevents a kidnapping attempt of Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and takes her into hiding while trying to find out why the Yakuza wants her.
Along with Logan, who is mysteriously losing his healing abilities, Yukio (Rila Fukushima) is watching after Logan and becomes his somewhat bodyguard. I don't wish to give too much away about the plot, so I will simply end it here, but I will tell you guys to wait for the mid-credits scene that will begin to set-up the ground work for next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past.
While many people can complain about how the film deviated from the comic, you can never fully stay within the boundaries of the film. A couple of points that bothered me was the fact that whole Silver Samurai creation and plot device did take away from a character that would've been very cool. However, given how Fox completely ruined Deadpool in the last film, I wasn't completely surprised with it.
Overall, I thought the acting of the film was the best that it could be. Using Japan as the backdrop for the film, when they used practical set pieces of Japan, it really delivered a beauty and atmosphere that you don't get from the computer-generated sets that we see in the night shots or even in the bullet train sequence.
One of the biggest letdowns for me was the use of Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova). While the whole Poison Ivy/Femme Fatale character was a bit overused, I think she was balanced out with Fukushima's Yukio character that could hold her own and in the fight scene in Yashida's compound really showed off her skills but left me wishing that they spent more time on her fighting style.
Janssen's Grey was in the film more than I expected.It was a symbol of Logan's turmoil, but it seemed a bit clich d as we know of Logan's long-suffering conscious. Hiroyuki Sanada's Shingen was a bit of the Matthew Modine character from the Dark Knight Rises of this movie. I never found his character to be completely fleshed out and his actions seemed a bit random at times. Even when his motives are explained, it seems to be a bit out of left field for me.
Was this the Wolverine movie we all deserved? No, but it was a start in the right direction. I think for any fans to really feel like they got that movie, it would have to be R-rated and we would have to see more blood. However, James Mangold did claim that there will be a bloodier version of the film coming to the DVD/Blu-ray release. Someone in the theater said it was the second bestX-Men movie in the franchise, I would have to say maybe the third best.
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