Movie Review: The Wolverine (2013)

After helping to nurture the cinematic superhero trend with 2000’s X-Men and its 2003 follow up, Fox seemed to lose their way with the poorly received X-Men: The Last Stand, which short changed such cornerstones of the comic as Cyclops and the Phoenix, and X-Men: Origins Wolverine, which wasted Deadpool and infamously introduced the concept of amnesia bullets. With the continued popularity of comic book movies and the mountains of money made by Marvel Studios with its Avengers franchise, Fox is trying to get back on the bandwagon that they were once at the head of with The Wolverine.

The good news is that they have mostly succeeded and if they can follow up on the solid promise shown here and in the X-Men: Days of Future Past (teased during the mid-credits sequence), there’s a good chance that they can build the Fox-Marvel universe back up to its previous popularity. Attempting to reach the heights as The Avengers too quickly, however, could scupper the whole enterprise again.

After five previous outings as Wolverine, Hugh Jackman, looking buff and sinewy, simply is the character at this stage. The film starts with him in World War 2 in a prisoner of war camp situated in ill fated Nagasaki, Japan. As the nuclear bomb that guaranteed the city it’s place in the history books is dropped, he saves the life of a young Japanese officer who had, moments before the blast, freed many of the captives. Cut to the present day and Logan is disheveled, isolated and living alone in a cave in the wilderness, mourning his sacrifice of Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey as the phoenix force consumed her in X-Men: The Last Stand. After an incident with a bear, some brutes and a brawl, Logan is fetched to Japan by “badass in boots” Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a swords-woman in the employ of Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), the same officer Logan had saved all those years before. Yashida is head of one of the most powerful Japanese companies in the world and is dying. He wishes to thank Logan personally.

Upon arrival and after a makeover that includes a punky, yet more restrained version of the trademark “Wolverine hair”, an ailing Yashida offers to make Logan mortal by transferring his immortality to someone else. To finally grant the “Kuzuri”, as he calls him, the release of an “ordinary death”. While he initially wants nothing to do with this, events overtake Wolverine as he is caught up in Yashida’s death, Yakuza attacks and the maneuvering between three generations of the Yashida clan: Yashida himself, his son, Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), and his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), a name that should be very familiar to any Wolverine readers.

Soon, Logan has to protect Mariko from an army of attackers through the streets of Tokyo and beyond, unravel the web of allegiances between the Yakuza, the Black Clan of ninjas, sometimes helpful archer Harada (Will Yun Lee), Yashida’s mysterious “oncologist” Dr. Green (Svetlana Khodchenkova) and Shingen, as well as manage a mysterious weakening of his regenerative powers. Wolverine still heals superhumanly fast, but not as rapidly as before and bullets slow him down a lot more than they used to. As the Yakuza find out fast, even without his X-factor at full strength, Logan is still a formidable adversary.

James Mangold, director of such relative grounded earthy staples as 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, and Cop Land, (as well as the awful Knight and Day) keeps proceedings well grounded for the most part, apart from a few sequences such as a fight at 300 mph both on, and outside, a bullet train and another involving a giant adamantium (but not quite silver) samurai near the climax of the film. These segments strain, but don’t quite break the reality created by the earlier parts of the film. Furthermore, Svetlana Khodchenkova’s Viper, while admittedly campy, doesn’t quite come off as “comic-booky” as she seems in the trailers. Speaking of which, the shot from the latter segment of the trailer with the ninjas being blown backwards from an explosion didn’t seem to be in the film at all. Perhaps it was cut for some reason in Malaysia or a longer cut may appear on the DVD/Blu-Ray release.

Mangold directs the action well, with plenty of thrilling samurai sword and knife fights and Wolverine’s claws get a good work out alongside Yukio’s swords. He also manages to frame some nice imagary in the film. A shot of “The Porcupine”, where Wolverine is pierced by dozens of ninjas’ arrows with ropes attached, stands out, as does the crispy Wolverine from the bomb blast beginning. The unfamiliar Japanese setting helps to keep things visually interesting.

The shifting relationships between the various players, spices up what could have been a one note plot and helps keep the audience engaged. The infrequent flashes to Wolverine’s past and conversations with Jean Grey also keep the audience involved in the downtime between action sequences. Famke Janssen’s role in the film is a pleasant surprise, as she pops up throughout the film instead of just appearing in a flashback or one-time dream. Logan’s conversations with her provide a nice ongoing glimpse into the state of his psyche which changes over the course of the film.  One sequence outside a Japanese love hotel, a vision of Jean in the rain, provides one of the few times in the film I remembered it was actually in 3D, as the spots from lights in the background beautifully floated out of the screen around Jean’s face. Despite all this angst though, the Wolverine is not a dour film, with frequent sprinkles of situational comedy, where appropriate, to lighten the tone.

We probably won’t know the impact of comic scribe Mark Millar’s role as shepherd of Fox’s Marvel cinematic universe for some time yet, however, someone has definitely been taking notes from Marvel Studios’ Avengers movies. Outside of Wolverine, most of the supporting characters have some basis from the comics, though there are a few changes here and there to keep comic fans guessing. Apart from the extended role by Jean Grey, the main body of the film does not feature that many nods to the other Fox X-Men movies, but funnily enough, they did manage to squeeze in a very brief reference to Silver Fox from the almost universally panned X-Men Origins:Wolverine. However, it’s the mid-credits stinger that holds the most promise. Closely aping the Marvel Studios style and tying directly into X-Men: Days of Future Past, with references to Trask Industries and the rest of the X-men. For fans, it is definitely worth sticking around for.

The Wolverine is a solid mutant action-thriller that does devolve slightly into some CGI madness near the end, but hopefully it can continue the rebirth of the franchise started with the great X-Men: First Class through into X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Check out our other reviews for The Wolverine:

Lance Eustache’s Review

Michelle Ealey’s Review

 

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