Review - The Wolverine (2013)

Starring Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee and Svetlana Khodchenkova.
Directed by James Mangold.

After a very mediocre Xmen Origins: Wolverine back in 2009, the world looked to a fresh and redeeming followup to one of our favorite Marvel super mutant. However they picked up right where they left off and it is clear to me that 20th Century Fox has no intention of making a solid Wolverine movie.

The Wolverine picks up after the events of Xmen: The Last Stand. Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a loner living in the forest of a small town. Like the movie Inception, Logan is haunted by the memories of Jean Grey (Famke Jannson) who appears to him in his dreams. He meets a young Japanese woman name Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who takes him to her dying employer in Japan. Her employer turns out to be Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), an old associate of Logan, who he saved decades ago in a war. He offers to make Logan mortal again but Logan refuses. After that, the movie enters into generic superhero blockbuster territory where Wolverine fights a lot of bad guys who tries to kill Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto).

I had no high expectations of The Wolverine. However I was surprised about how overall slow and drawn out this movie was. What is funny is that the action sequences are evenly spread out throughout this movie but surprisingly they made it no more than it already was. The Wolverine is a boring superhero movie and the script is laughable. Hugh Jackman was solid again as our clawed hero but everyone else around him was lackluster. The Japanese actors did very little and Logan had little to no chemistry with both Yukio and Mariko. Even our main antagonist Viper (played by Svetlana Khodchenkova) was not very convincing either. She tried but I was not feeling her. The whole movie felt implausible, even those Logan - Jean Grey visions.

It was not until the final act of the movie that I was realized there was a double narrative running. The primary narrative involving Mariko's assassination attempt and the other which revealed a twist regarding Viper and Yashida. I think the writers got confused about the direction they wanted this story to go in. It wasn't handled very well and while watching, I found myself asking a lot of questions because it just didn't make much sense to me. There were also aspects of the story that felt a bit too convenient at some points. The weak story-telling drowned the twist in the final act; by the time it came around, I didn't give a crap anyways. There were a few okay fight sequences but overall it lacked that wow factor. They were plain and the CGI effects were not that good in some scenes. I liked the train sequence but that was it for The Wolverine.

As much as I thought Xmen Origins: Wolverine was lacking, it was far more enjoyable than this sequel. Hugh Jackman does what he can but The Wolverine was pretty lifeless for most parts. Forgettable in about two minutes.

Rating: 4/10

PS - Stay for the post credit scene.