The Wolverine (Movie Review)

This summer marked the release of a ton of great action packed films starring heroes which included Superman and The Lone Ranger. However, Hugh Jackman is the only man to ever step into the shoes of Wolverine and has done so perfectly. There was little to be desired with The Wolverine besides Jackman's superb acting skills.

The Wolverine starts out with Logan as a prisoner of war who ends up saving the life of his captor Yashida after a nuclear missile hits Nagasaki. Once the dramatic prelude finishes then we skip to the present day with Logan hiding out in a cave in Yukon trying to drink away his memories of killing Jean Grey (Famke Janssen).

Logan continues to have painful dreams of Jean and losing his one true love is just too much to bear. He wakes up from his nightmare to greet the bare who is hibernating next to him before he embarks into town for more supplies. However, once a bunch of reckless hillbilly drunks kill the bear with a poison arrow and leave it to suffer, then Logan sets out for revenge. However, a woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) breaks up the fight, and informs Logan that he is wasting his time since they will all die soon anyway. Our mysterious ass-kicking woman has a special power that allows her to see into the future and to see how those around her will die.

Yukio informs Logan that the Japanese solider he saved in 1945 is now on his deathbed and wants to say good-bye to him. After little debate over the idea, Logan jumps on a plane and heads to Japan to say his farewells to a dying friend, or so he thinks. Before we know it, Logan is smack in the middle of a ton of drama which includes the Yakuza, a mutant called Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), the dying man's family and a devious plan to steal Logan's abilities to heal.

Although the storyline is intriguing--the overall movie falls flat and leaves little to be desired. Jackman does an excellent job of portraying Wolverine, but the overall pacing and plot, just aren't what you would expect of a movie with our favorite X-Men. The film tries to incooperate an unbelievable new love interest with Yashida's grand daughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) while trying to show that Logan has real human emotions alongside his masculine exterior. However, the combination of this with the usual hack-and-slash action and preposterous ending with a enemy in adamantium armor just doesn't cut it. By the end of the film, while Logan struggled with his inner demons and wondering what to do next, I found myself struggling to stay awake.

Score: 7.5 out 10
Movie Features
Directed by James Mangold
Written by Mark Bomback, Scott Frank, Christopher McQuarrie
Starring Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Hal Yamanouchi
Classification PG
Genre Action
Year 2013
Country USA
Language English