Even by comic book movie franchise standards, X-Men hasn’t exactly followed the most consistent of lines. After the groundwork-laying X-Men, the terrific X2 (arguably still one of the finest comic book movies ever made) and the shambolic X-Men: The Last Stand, they tried to give the most famous of the X-Men his own spin-off movie, delving back into his Origins which turned out to be disappointing, to put it mildly.
The once great X-Men name was then salvaged by First Class, which didn’t feature Wolverine (save for a brilliant cameo), and with a sequel to that upcoming it seems the franchise is back on some sort of solid track. While The Wolverine doesn’t hit anywhere near the same heights as the franchise has reached before it’s a nevertheless a perfectly decent instalment, one that makes entertaining use of Wolverine’s abilities and lets him loose on a Japanese setting that’s at least unique to most movies of this ilk.
We catch up with Wolverine, or Logan as he’s now going by, living on the road and out in the wilderness, moving from place to place and generally trying to avoid the life he used to have before the death of his beloved Jean Grey. One night, after a run-in with some small town bear hunters, he is tracked down by Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who reveals she works for Master Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), a former Japanese soldier whom Logan had saved during World War II. Now on his deathbed and in search of his savour to thank him, Logan reluctantly agrees to go to Japan to see him but soon finds out that Yashida wants more than he initially let on. Logan must then go on the run with Yashida’s daughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) who is being targeted.
Jackman is once again very good as the eponymous mutant though it’s a role he could now play in his sleep. He is given more space to breathe and brood in between set-pieces than in previous films, with dream sequences attempting to add emotion to the proceedings, however successful they may be. The mostly Japanese supporting cast, namely Hiroyuki Sanada as the power hungry boss’ son Shingen and relative newcomer Rila Fukushima as Yukio get a surprising amount to do considering the spotlight is on Wolverine, while Svetlana Khodchenkova as mutant-powered secondary villain Viper feels rather by-the-numbers. Crucially, though, it doesn’t suffer under the weight of too many characters in a way that brought Origins to its knees.
Director James Mangold, whose previous credits include western remake 3:10 To Yuma, music biopic Walk the Line and the relatively recent actioner Knight & Day, does a decent job in juggling the action, sometimes unnecessarily convoluted plot and a surprisingly deliberate pace, with plenty of scenes dealing with the character’s past mistakes and showing how that affects his present – while that aspect doesn’t always work and will be a distraction for those looking for consistent action, it’s at least having a go at something a little deeper than usual. Mangold isn’t averse to going all out in some of the action sequences; a set-piece atop a train going 300mph, for instance, is a particular highlight that stays with you for the rest of the movie.
A considerable improvement on the last Wolverine outing, which swerved from dull to daft throughout, The Wolverine ticks enough summer blockbuster boxes even as it’s overshadowed by Guillermo del Toro’s giant robots fighting giant monsters, the crew of the USS Enterprise star trekking into darkness and Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot taking flight, to name but a few. After a solid first two acts it unfortunately devolves into something more generic with a finale that is as silly as it is overblown but for the most part the action delivers where it counts. Not exactly a resounding success but far from the disastrous low the franchise has hit in the past.
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Good review Ross. Not only did I have a great time with the action, but the story itself actually kept me grounded with these characters and story.