Movie Review: The Wolverine

 

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada & Famke Janssen
Director: James Mangold

In a few words...: Based on a famous comic, The Wolverine heads to Japan searching for the ultimate weapon: immortality.
 
Rating: 6/10

Beware: SPOILERS AHEAD

The sixth film in the long-running X-Men franchise - and the second Wolverine vehicle for Australia's own Hollywood superstar Hugh Jackman - starts with a literal bang, opening seconds prior to the detonation of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War Two. Held prisoner in a POW camp nearby. Logan AKA The Wolverine, rescues a young Japanese officer named Yashida from certain death, shielding him against the nuclear blast.

Flash forward to present day, and Logan is living like a homeless person amongst the bleakness of the Yukon, and haunted by strange and disturbing visions of his long lost love, Jean Grey. In fact, Wolverine is haunted by plenty, as befits a man who can live forever, and who has basically lost everyone he's ever loved, and Jackman's performance highlights the intense loneliness of a man who knows only death, destruction and heartache. Wolverine is a menacing, brooding figure, and the heavy beard that he sports for the first third of the movie, before returning to that classic look, suit him well.

Now, Yashida, the officer he saved at the end of the war, is the owner of a multi-billion dollar company, yet is is dying, and has sent an emissary - Yukio, another mutant who can, to a degree, at least, visualise the future - to beg Logan to travel to Japan (actually, Sydney, Australia!!) so that the old man can say goodbye. He reluctantly agrees, and there in the capital meets Yashida's son, Shingen, and granddaughter, Mariko. He also finds out why Yashida has asked him to come: the Japanese man wants to transfer Logan's healing powers to himself, thus giving Logan a chance at a normal life and a normal death. 

Stalking around in the shadows, is Yashida's blonde American doctor, better known as Viper (herself a mutant with a unique ability beyond her sinisterly flickering tongue), who gives Logan a taste of what it might be like when she introduces something into his body that, eventually, makes him vulnerable to physical pain. This is Wolverine as we've never seen him before, hobbling, near death, confused...angry.

For mine, The Wolverine isn't quite sure what it wants to be. There's mutants, a love story, the back story of Logan's immortality and the still-there pain of losing Jean Grey, and, also, we are drawn into a family dispute, the Yashida clan all fighting for control of the considerable business empire once the patriach is dead. Of course, being Japan, there's a healthy dose of Yakukza gangsters and ninja commandos...which we all expected.

Particularly if viewed in 3D, the film boasts some spectacular set pieces - only memorable scene on a Bullet Train, and the final showdown in the wintry Japanese countryside - but I thought there were times where the plot seemed to drag, and where the film wasn't quite sure whether it was a mutant movie, a gangster film or something else entirely. It was at it's best when Logan/Wolverine had his claws out, and was menacing. Viper wasn't used enough for my liking. She seemed to be little more than a bit player until the end, and then it was too late, really, to have much more impact than her being another throwaway villian for Logan and his allies to dispatch.

The cliffhanger wasn't quite as shocking as perhaps it was meant to be. It occurred to me early on that some major parts of the story seemed to be glossed over, and when they are, it's usually because the filmmakers are trying to pull the wool over the audience's eyes for a big reveal later on, as we saw at the end. Besides, these sorts of twists are almost expected though. What wasn't expected, for mine, was the interesting mid-credits cameo of Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), which tend to suggest that the franchise will continue in some way or another. Particularly if the Box Office takings are good, as it seems they will be.

All in all, not a bad film - a little disjointed at times, but Hugh Jackman really owns this role, and it was perfect Friday night entertainment!