The Wolverine (2013) Review

★★★ 

By: Kameron McBride

Lets take a quick trip back in time to 2003 shall we? It was early May, right after X2: X–Men United came out and changed the game in terms of superhero movies. While superhero movies had been coming out and making a lot of money, X2 was the first really good, thought-provoking superhero movie to come out. The heart and soul of those first two films was Logan, better known as "Wolverine," the Canuck badass played by Hugh Jackman, so when news broke there would be a third X–Men film followed by a spin-off Wolverine film people were very excited.

Flash-forward to May of 2009. The X-Men: The Last Stand has tanked (thanks in large part due to a directing shuffle) and the X–Men Origins: Wolverine was a disappointing film that spent more time shoving as many new–and lame–mutants into its run time rather than actually exploring the Wolverine character itself. Origins might be the most disappointing superhero film to come out, if for no other reason than Jackman is the perfect Wolverine and the first solo film represented a lot of squandered potential. 

And this brings us up to date, with a new Wolverine film freshly released. Needless to say, expectations have been tempered for what used to be the biggest comic book cinematic hero. So what does The Wolverine have to offer? 

The film starts out with Logan (Jackman) living in seclusion, camping in the woods somewhere in Canada. He is a broken man, haunted by visions of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) his romantic interest form the X-Men films. He is picked up there by Yukio (Rila Fukushima) a mysterious and agile warrior who tells Wolverine that her employer wants to meet Logan in Japan. This employer is Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) a man whom Logan saved in Japan during the bombing of Hiroshima. 

Yashida offers Logan a "gift:" he can take away his healing powers and essentially make Logan mortal. Logan spurns the gift and instead decides to head back home the next day. This is all changes as Yashida dies the next day and Logan is forced into a plot to protect Yashida's daughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto) from Yakuza and other villains suddenly on her tail. Further complicating matters is the fact that Logan is no longer healing at his usual rate and finds himself much more vulnerable than usual.

One reason I find this movie refreshing is that–unlike a lot of superhero films–it's focused on the character itself, rather than putting them into some kind of apocalyptic peril. It takes more time to really build up Wolverine's personal struggles and not just treat him as CGI action hero. The set pieces aren't rushed and thrown at us non-stop and there's a feeling that there was some genuine care and effort put into this movie.

In fact one thing I felt this film does that Origins specifically ignored is the emotional toll living forever has to take on a person. The opening to Origins shows Logan taking part in every major conflict since the Civil War, what the film doesn't show is what that kind of turmoil does to a person. The Wolverine actually takes time to establish the scars and pain Logan carries after having endured so much.

The biggest problem with The Wolverine is the ending. After taking such a long time to build up our character in the the first two acts, the third devolves into mindless action with a really obvious twist. I think the film also misjudges its villains a little bit. Specifically I think Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) really is distracting in how underdeveloped and unrelated she is to the actually very interesting family dynamics going on between the Japanese families in the film. The villains aren't really interesting because they don't have as much time to flesh out.

I also feel the movie can be a little confusing at times trying to keep track of exactly where some of the various side characters stand. I think this also works sometimes though, as the film actually maintains a good deal of suspense. The problem, however, goes back to the final payoff which is pretty lame given how much time we spend building to it. I also thought this film was marketed as Logan choosing between a mortal and immortal life, when the finished product spends almost no time on that choice at all. 

The Wolverine is far and away the best superhero film to be released this summer. Though given how weak the other superhero films have been, that's entirely high praise. The praise I can offer is that The Wolverine, for now, has staved off my sense that superhero films have run their course and it actually piques my interest for Days of Future Past- the next X-Men movie. What I can't shake, however, is the sense that this Wolverine film is coming about four years too late and could have used just a little more time to get the final act down.

Overall, however, we finally have a very respectable big-screen treatment of the Wolverine character, with the promise of another grand X-Men film on the horizon.