Review of The Wolverine (2013) by James M — 24 May 2014

This is proof that Wolverine needs the X-Men more than the X-Men need Wolverine.

X-Men: First Class went by without the iconic character (albeit a brief cameo) and was thoroughly enjoyable with plenty of action scenes whilst remaining faithful to the original comic source.

This is more a spin-off, following on from the events in X-Men: The Last Stand, with Logan (aka Wolverine) travelling to Japan to see an old man, who as a young soldier he saved from an atomic blast in Nagasaki during WWII. The old man went on to become a successful Japanese entrepreneur who offers Logan a chance to become mortal again. Logan refuses and the old man dies later that night.

The Yakuza ambush the old man's granddaughter, who Logan protects and goes into hiding with, though his mutant powers are diminishing and it's not clear why. It turns out it's the work of another mutant, a viper woman who's work was keeping the old man alive beyond his years, leading to a showdown with a robotic samurai which is all a bit of an anticlimax and incredibly predictable.

Hugh Jackman does his best with what he's given, he really is the only actor who can do justice to the character but the script and poorly staged action scenes let him down. It has to be said that for a film of this magnitude, the visual effects are absolutely horrendous!

Overall, this is a bit of a 'fuck you' to fans of the X-Men films, although a post credit sequence featuring Magneto & Professor X give some hope that the character will get a chance of redemption in the X-Men outing.