The Wolverine

The best compliment I can give to The Wolverine is to say it is way better than Man of Steel. The worst thing I can ask about The Wolverine is why? Why do we need three X-Men movies and two solo Wolverine movies within ten years? I'm sorry, but the Wolverine just isn't THAT interesting. This newest outing, while sort of fun at times and truly exciting at others, is just pointless. It doesn't add anything to the character or the story. It serves merely as another means to make even more money for Marvel's while we all wait for next summer and the newest X-Men outing. Also, it is largely known that Darren Aronofsky, one of my favorite directors, was originally tapped to helm this film and I couldn't help but spend the entire two hours of this movie wondering how he would have done it differently (and probably better).

The Wolverine reintroduces us to Logan (Hugh Jackman, aren't we as a society collectively sick of him yet??? No, just me?? OK...) as he is living in a cave somewhere in the Pacific Northwest having flashbacks to his time in Japan and being haunted by the ghost of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). One day a mysterious Japanese girl (Rila Fukushima) shows up, begging Logan to come to Tokyo and say good bye to her employer, a man whose life Logan saved many years ago. Turns out, this man wants Logan's gift - his ability to live forever, but Logan is unwilling to give it. The old man dies suddenly and then Logan feels compelled to save his daughter (Tao Okamoto) from a slew of people trying to kill her. Twists and turns and fight scenes ensue, of course.

If it hadn't been for the Origins story a few years ago, this movie may have been more welcome. But, as I said earlier, really how many times can we visit the same character without learning anything new about said character? It gets tiresome, always visiting Wolverine's life. There are other characters in the X-Men universe. How about origin stories on some of them instead? I thought that was always the plan but it seems like they just intend on making endless Wolverine movies.

The bullet train fight scene might be the best action scene of the year so far. So, at least this movie has got that going for it. Plus, a lot of it is really fun, especially if you can ignore all the science and physics, that I'm not even sure the writers understand, so how can the audience? If you ignore the plot holes (which I try to do... a big part of why I enjoy movies so much is that I can ignore the little things and focus on the bigger picture) and the forced romance and the fact that the Jean Grey story line acts entirely as an excuse to get Janssen in the film, then it is more than possible to have a good time at this movie. Jackman has been playing Wolverine for so long that he has it down pat and it doesn't even feel like he's merely going through the motions the way it felt with Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. You always get the sense that Jackman is having a good time playing Wolverine, which, at the very least, is nice.

The pacing is slow, the story line convoluted, but the action is largely great, not messy and redundant the way the Man of Steel movie or Iron Man 3 were, with never ending finale battle scenes. Overall, this might have seemed like a much better movie had we not already sat through a Wolverine solo movie just a few years ago. How many of them do we need?? How many more times can Jackman play the same role? Is he not as tired with the whole thing as we are?? Overall, the Wolverine isn't a bad movie and as far as summer popcorn movies go, it's a decent time at the movie. Don't expect too much and you might not be let down.

Grade: C