The Wolverine - Movie Review

"Wolverine, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, pays a visit to an old comrade in Japan and finds himself in the midst of a power struggle."

The second solo venture for Hugh Jackman was an idea that many were skeptical about given the previous attempt back in 2009 which was the travesty known as 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'. I myself was included in this array of people that didn't quite know what to make of this film before going into it. I can certainly say that I was in no way reassured when the trailer came round, nonetheless I was willing to give the film a fair shot, and I'm glad that I did.

The Wolverine is a continuation of the events from X-Men: The Last Stand and picks up sometime after all of that happened. We see Logan in a deteriorated state, downbeat about his life and not living with any purpose whatsoever. As time goes on, he meets a young Japanese woman named Yukio who has been sent to track him and down and help a friend thank Logan one final time for saving his life before he seemingly dies. Now for me, I thought this was quite a solid direction to take in terms of the narrative for this lone venture. If a solo Wolverine film is going to be made, I think the best possible action that can be taken in regards to the story is to go down a route that is so drastically different to anything we've seen before. One of my main concerns about the film was that it was going to be too 'been there, done that' but I'm glad to say that this is about as different as it gets. I'm not trying to say that it doesn't follow a similar format to comic book films or films in general, but The Wolverine has a much stronger direction than plenty. We've not quite seen anything like this within this type of film which is quite refreshing to see. What I mean is that it brought new challenges and a completely fresh arc for Hugh Jackman's character to face which I can certainly appreciate both the writers and James Mangold for bringing to this movie.

As for the story on a whole, I thought that it was good enough for what the film was. While it did feel from the trailers that the element of Wolverine wanting to step away from the life he lives and losing his 'powers' was cliched, it didn't come across that way in the film for sure. I thought the way that James Mangold presented it was in such a crisp, neatly wrapped way that it definitely had my attention for the most part. I enjoyed seeing a vulnerable side to an otherwise indestructible character which falls into my previous comments about the direction that the film took in relation to the narrative. It felt that we were being thrust into this completely unfamiliar environment of Tokyo alongside Logan and were just as in awe of the whole situation as he was. I would say this was down to the tone that the film set up which again, James Mangold did a great job of implementing into the film. Everything felt very authentic and natural, despite being out of the ordinary to what we expect from a comic book film, it still managed to not feel too strikingly diverse that it would be distracting or uninteresting.

Which leads me into more depth about the direction the story took, and I can safely praise yet again how much more layered this story was. Full credit to the screenwriters the clearly apparent job they did at giving us a much deeper side to this well known character that we've never seen before. It was almost as if a different shade of the character we have known for so long came out and offered us another perspective to who he truly is and how he feels. I didn't expect this at all, even from the trailers we got when footage was shown of some of these scenes. Maybe it was due to the expectations that I had which gave me the sense that it was going to be a simple, paper thin plotted film with no heart to it. I'm not saying that I was completely wrong because it doesn't offer tons and tons of depth and development but definitely a whole lot more than I was expecting that's for sure. Like I said, we see this new side to Logan/Wolverine that hasn't been uncovered or explored up until now and I liked what they were going for. You see Wolverine at the lowest point in his life, with no will to live and no purpose in the life he leads before then he is suddenly given the one thing that he wants; mortality. It made for some pretty strong scenes involving him and Jean Grey who appears within his dreams. I honestly believe that without this going for it, I for one would certainly have not been remotely interested in this film because without giving us this unseen side to Logan, there isn't much else that would have had me invested enough to have cared what was going on.

Something that no matter how good or bad a film with Wolverine is, you can never come away disappointed with the performance that Hugh Jackman gives. This time around I thought he stepped everything up and gave his best performance as Wolverine to date. Not only was he in the best physical shape that I think I've ever seen him in, he brought real emotion and sympathy to his character in scenes that I previously mentioned where it required a more 'human' touch to them. As for the newer additions to the cast, I thought there wasn't any particular standouts but they were fine for the job they were given to do. One thing I will mention though is more towards a certain character rather than the way they were portrayed. The villain in this film "Viper" was just about all of the stereotypical traits a villain could have, rolled into one. I almost expected with how the film was panning out as it progressed that a half decent villain wouldn't be something too much to ask for but it seems that it was. She was a completely 1 dimensional character that was given the cliched background story of what she wanted to do and why. As well as the lack of development for her character, I just thought she ruined the tone and atmosphere that the film was going for/had. She didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story and was simply there to serve as both a throwaway villain for the singular film and another character from the comic books shoehorned in.

Both the visuals of The Wolverine and the fight scenes that it included were immaculate. This is a visually stunning film it has to be said. Again, James Mangold did an excellent job along with the DP of making this film look so captivating. The locations within Tokyo that we are given are incredible and it's a real joy to watch a film within this environment. As for the fight scenes, expertly choreographed it has to be said. I have to credit the camerawork for them because despite being shot by handheld for the most part, I had a clear sense of what was going on. This will have been because of the PG-13 rating that the film wanted which meant that they had to leave the true violence in terms of blood and gore, to the viewer's imagination which I can admire the way in which they did so. My favourite which I can say was different from what we were given prior was the train sequence. Ironically, this was the sequence from the trailer that I was probably dreading to see the most. The CGI effects in the trailer for this sequence looked really poor, you could clearly tell that a green screen effect was used. This isn't the case at all in the film where it is more than the most intriguing and well executed action sequence that The Wolverine had to offer. The problem that I had with them though was that after one or two, they did seem to become a little repetitive. Almost as if the people working on them became either lazy or simply ran out of ideas as they had the same look and feel as previous ones. This was up until the climax of the film where the fight scenes, in particular the final fight were for lack of a better word dull, I shall say. It had the feel of a 'final boss battle' from a video game when this 20 foot giant mechanized Samurai was the foe that Logan had to face. Albeit different from the previous sequences we had been given, I couldn't help but be completely taken out of the final 20 minutes by this. Up until then I was entertained by what I was seeing but I didn't care for this final fight one bit. Probably due to the quick shake of tone that it took; gone from being a somewhat grounded comic book film to a ludicrous, outrageously over the top mess by the end. Even before this fight scene occurred, I could slowly feel the film losing sight of where it was going and heading towards a generic climax much to my disappointment. When Viper's plans were revealed and Logan was making his way to their location was about the mark that I switched off and lost most of my interest in what was going on.

Overall, The Wolverine was definitely better than I was expecting it to be, a both decent action film and comic book film. It gave us some more insight into a character that has featured in 5 films (including the small cameo in FC) and managed to seem somewhat refreshing even after all this time. Do I think this film would have been a lot better as R-rated and with Darren Aronofsky directing? Damn right I do, I can only wish that we would have an idea of how that final product would have been. Was the film we got good enough? Yeah, I'd have to say for what it's worth, The Wolverine serves as a pretty good standalone film. Something more than can be said about X-Men Origins: Wolverine anyway.