The Wolverine

Article by Zach Goodier

Hugh Jackman is back for the highly-anticipated movie The Wolverine.  When it comes to this movie, you can be sure that Jackman knows his character and can deliver a consistently good performance as the immortal mutant, but the weak point of Origins lay with the supporting cast, as well as some weak writing and blundered execution of what should have been a very compelling story.  The Wolverine provides a chance at redemption for this spin-off, but does it succeed where its predecessor failed?  Let's get into the review and discuss exactly that.

Yashida, the man Wolverine saved from the Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

The story is arguably the most compelling of all of the X-men movies: Wolverine is coping with the consequences of what he did at the end of Last Stand, and he is at a crossroads, he has no reason to continue living, but he also has no means of dying.  Logan is plagued by nightmares revolving around Jean and the things that he has done.  This is where an old friend sends one of his agents, Yukio, to bring Logan back to Japan, where he had saved this man, Yashida, from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.  Logan's reward for his act is the chance at becoming mortal, so that he can live a normal life and die a normal death.  This is where the story is at its strongest: forcing Logan to confront the possibility of finally being free of the immortality that has forced him to endure all his suffering. 

Yukio is not a girl to be taken lightly, it's just too bad her character wasn't developed more in the script.

From there, the story quickly turns into the action flick that we expected, with Yashida dying, and the Yakuza attacking the funeral to kidnap his granddaughter, Mariko.  From there, we see romance, betrayal, and some quality fights that contain some excellent stunt work and martial arts.  However, the story kind of drops to the background for the most part, with Logan only coming back to the question of whether or not he is ready to die when his powers are taken away and all the wounds he used to be able to shrug off are no longer healing like they used to.  It quickly felt like the story took a backseat, and the movies ending just wasn't all that strong like I was hoping it would be.  It wasn't all that bad, but it really didn't feel like it came full-circle like it should have.

The Silver Samurai has adamantium armor and swords.... So yeah, that just doesn't seem right.  Is Oprah just giving the stuff away now? Wolverine had it before it was cool.

Most of the side characters in this movie have the same shortcomings as those in Origins: they are either not written very well, or they just tried to force things a little too much, too fast, and it ends up seeming hollow in some way.  I think the biggest shortcoming of both Origins and The Wolverine is that they tried to put too many characters into a movie that doesn't take the time to allow a lot of character building between big action scenes.  That being said, Mariko is well written, but Yukio never seemed to get the attention she needed to be fully developed.  She does have some back-story, but as a character she is never fully brought to life for me, considering her significant role throughout the film. 

Viper (left) and Mariko (right) are having a little friendly "chat."

One big issue I saw with this film was in how it handled the established lore.  Without spoiling too much, adamantium is no longer the invincible material we thought it was.  While the comics have differing views on adamantium and Wolverine's powers involving it, as well as how other characters have made use of the unbreakable metal.  However, I felt that rather than risk upsetting the fan base, they could have avoided any problems by just letting adamantium clash with adamantium, just like in the 2nd X-men film.  Once it's broken, the magic is somewhat lost.

One thing this film does right is getting Wolverine more in touch with his samurai-inspired roots in the comics.

Overall, this movie was enjoyable, but held back by the lack of character development for some of the most essential supporting characters.  While whether or not some parts of this film violate lore is debatable due to the flexibility of the story based on the different writers and their takes on adamantium and its' limitations, it feels like a move that was unnecessary in the first place.  Not only does it risk the near-invincible status of our favorite X-man, but it also felt like a pointless move on the part of the writers.  Wolverine is a character driven by the sacrifices he has made, and the hell he has been through.  Every "scar" he bears, and every change he has gone through reflects a significant point of his life.  While this movie is by no means a footnote in Wolverine's extremely long and eventful life, it still lacked that feeling of significance to him.  This movie wasn't about a profound change in the same way that Origins was, it was simply a return to normalcy for the most part.  While the alone bears some significance, it just didn't have the same emotional weight behind it that other X-men movies were able to deliver.

Good:

-Hugh Jackman is still THE Wolverine, no doubt about it.

-Wolverine facing the "curse" of immortality provides a great element to the story.

-Great stunts and martial arts work during the action scenes.

-Some exciting new characters from the comics.

Bad:

-Story kind of takes a backseat to the action, which leaves some things up in the air.  Even the big "twist" towards the end was too predictable, I knew it was coming after the first half hour or so into the film.

-Supporting characters kind of feel like they lacked strong writing in the script, or there just wasn't a lot done with them.

-While the lore of Wolverine is rather flexible, there is still the potential for fans to get very upset with how things turn out, especially without any sort of explanation as to how these things are even possible.

Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10