User Reviews

I was very impress on how good the movie was really is. It wasn't as good as 2003's X2, but it was a lot better than 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Still, the movie doesn't match up with any of the previous films very well. That's why the plot holes were so big in the film in this film. We're talking about a franchise who continuity is very washy where it goes, where it came from and what it being present right now. It seem like FOX's Marvel team doesn't know how to handle the X-franchise properly. At less, Disney's Marvel kind of fix the loose-ends of the previous superheroes movies for 2011's Avengers release. I would love to see Marvel under one company sooner than later. Add, Columbia's Spiderman and any licensed Marvel that belong to other companies elsewhere. I don't care who own Marvel, as long as the films are good and make sense. With that, say, I was under the impression that he visit Japan storyline takes place prior to his joining the X-Men in the canon after WWI. Like the comic and the previous movie, he fought in Europe during WWII. So how was he in Japan in WWII? Plus, how does Logan even have memory of the event, if the previous film showed us he took a bullet to the head that made him forget everything that happened to him prior to his operation post-WW2? It wasn't that big of a deal, since I know the movie takes creative license, which is pretty OK in my book. At less, he goes back to Japan just after the Dark Phoenix saga, so this movie fits in with the comic pretty correct there. The Wolverine, is loosely based on Chris Claremont 1982 four-issue spin off comic series that sent Logan to Japan, for which Claremont drafted then-rising-superstar artist Frank Miller. The characters have the same name, but it's doesn't follow the comic book so well. It doesn't work as an adapted as the comic book, but as a movie of its own. Chris McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects, has written the script, so that'll give you a good clue, it's worth watching. After the events from 2006's X-Men Last Stand, Logan (Hugh Jackson) lives as a hermit in the Yukon, tormented by hallucinations memories of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). Was Jean just a personification of Logan's guilt, or is it really phoenix in his head with him? Logan then finds himself being seek out by Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who works for Shingen Yashida (Hiroyuki Sanada) who wants to offers to transfer Logan's healing abilities into his father's body. Allowing Logan, a chance to live a normal life rather than being curse with immortality. Logan hating the fact that he outlive everybody he has once love, agrees. Logan set out for Japan, once there, he finds that something malicious is being case as Yashida's doctor, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) plans to use it for a ultimate weapon call the Silver Samurai, a suit made out of Adamantium metal. Logan refused, but Viper weaken Logan's body to the point that the first time in Logan's life, he might die from the poisoning of Adamantium metal in his body. If not the poison, he might die due to the large numbers of Yakuza and Ninjas set out to kill him. In my opinion, the movie's plot could have been better. The movie's plot moves really slow, it's not well spread out, and last a lot of sub-plot got in the way with the main. I really couldn't find Logan falling in love with Yashida Clan member Mariko (Tao Okamoto). There was a lack of chemistry between Jackman and Tao, their characters were well written had the chemistry but the actors did bring that to life. I know, based on the comics, Logan likes Mariko, but in my opinion, I thought Yukio made a better love interest in this film. Better yet, why even have a love interest. It's seems like any female character put into a comic book film is there only for a love interest arch. I wish Mariko had more to offer the film. Mariko remained the useless princess stereotype. It felt like watching a superhero version of Karate Kiba, a martial-arts film starring Sonny Chiba, released in 1973. About Yukio, she is a mutant with the precognitive ability to know when someone will die. Her power wasn't needed. Nor does it makes any sense, in the case of Yashida and Logan toward the end. Fans may hate what they did for Silver Samurai. Silver Samurai look like Super Shredder in my opinion. FYI. The robotic Silver Samurai is in the new comics, so it does somewhat works. What doesn't work is Viper. The model actress is so awful in acting. Her scenes were so cartoony with all those hissing sounds. Was it really all that necessary to include Viper as a mutant, when she works much better as an Captain America villain. While Hugh Jackson did great as Logan. I just wish to see Logan learn more about the Japanese culture. In the comic, he was being trained in martial arts. In the film, he isn't doing anything new. He seem like a fish out of water there. Critics says the film is darken in tone, in my opinion, it wasn't. The action scenes were good. Bullet train scene was over the top, but it was short. Don't watch it in 3D, it was pretty useless .In a mid-credits scene, there is a scene worth watching hyping X-Men: Days of Future Past. Overall: If you're watching it as an action flick, yes it's a good movie. If you're a fan of the Wolverine character and actually know something about this storyline, you'll be quite disappointed, just like the last X-Men. Still, it's fun to watch.

Walk the Line director James Mangold was tasked with bringing Logan back to the big screen in what is Hugh Jackman's sixth outing as the Wolverine after last making an appearance in an uncredited cameo role in the 2011 hit film X-Men: First Class.

The film, which Mangold has said follows on from the 2006 hit film X-Men: The Last Stand which saw the disbandment of the group and the deaths of Jean Gray and Professor Charles Xavier, sees Logan struggling to cope with his past in an uncertain future. With the love of his life dead (Jean Gray, played by Famke Janssen), he finds it tough to find motivation to go on. Haunted by terrorising nightmares and flashbacks of Grey, The Wolverine's strength is most certainly in its dark, gritty portrayal of Logan's problems.

After establishing that Logan once saved a Japanese soldiers life by covering him from the blasts of the Atomic Bomb that hit Hiroshima in 1945, that same solider, now the dying billionaire Yashida (Hal Yamonouchi), sends his loyal staff member Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to track him down. Logan's understanding is that it is to say a final goodbye to an old friend, however on arrival he finds that he was taken there under false pretences. He quickly finds himself entangled in the task of saving Yahida's beloved Granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) from harms way, a journey that may just turn out to save himself from his demons as well as the girl he has begun to fall for.

The film asks several key questions of Logan and shows a side to him not often seen: vulnerability. Is immortality what Logan truly desires? On his way to self discovery he finds that what he was beginning to see as his greatest weakness is in fact his biggest strength.

The Wolverine will have not let any die-hard X-Men fans down in its portrayal of Logan. Jackman's strong performance that gives an intriguing insight into his characters mindset is the real backbone to what is an engaging, yet rather menacing piece of film. Certain questions are left unanswered, as into the motives of certain characters, but the effective blend of intense, but certainly not over-played, fight-sequences and the strength of Jackman's portrayal of the Wolverine sees you looking past these minor faults and being able to easily enjoy the spectacle that Mangold has pieced together.

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Usually plot holes are isolated. This movie was however one giant plothole.

(1) Grandpa

This is what I understood at the end of the movie: Turns out Grandpa is a bad ass who just wanted to magically suck Wolverine's healing powers and live forever. So what he did was (i) Invite Wolverine to Japan; (ii) Fake his own death; (iii) As part of his plan (?) inject a spider onto Wolverine's heart so that he loses his healing powers--What in the world did this achieve for evil Grandpa?; (iv) As part of his plan (?) allow his granddaughter to be subject to multiple assassination attempts, just so that Wolverine will keep following her; (v) Then after leaving a trail of crumbs for Hansel and Gretel, captures his granddaughter, and lures Wolverine to some sort of lair, where his powers can be sucked.

The (?)'s indicate where I am not sure if it was really part of Grandpa's plan or things just worked out this way.

Given the tremendous amount of uncertainty involved in the above plan (e.g. Wolverine might've been killed, in which case no powers to suck; his granddaughter might've been killed, in which case end of story, and Wolverine would've returned to the Yukon to chill out with grizzlies), you'd think there'd been a simpler and cleaner way to do all this. But no.

All this is quite forgivable, compared to other things that went wrong.

(2) Viperwoman

What the hell is motivating her? What does she want? Is she working for herself? Or is she working for Grandpa and if so, why?

How did she inject the spider onto Wolverine's heart? Just by kissing him in the middle of the night? (This was never clarified.)

(3) Japanese Father and Japanese Fiancé

OK so it turns out the whole family (except pretty granddaughter) are a bunch of one-dimensional assholes. This is clichéd and boring and stupid, but still acceptable if you at least make some effort explaining what exactly was motivating them.

Japanese Father wants to kill his own daughter just because Grandpa willed her everything? (Oh, and this too was part of Grandpa's grand masterplan?)

Japanese Fiancé is just some asshole who's engaged to pretty granddaughter (this, BTW, is explained for us gaijin simply by the line that "You're not Japanese, so you won't understand"). He's the minister of justice or something. And he likes to have white hookers in his hotel room. Uh, and what else do we know about him? Nothing! Basically he's just some asshole who somehow wants to do bad things.

There are many other things wrong with this movie. E.g.,

(4) Totally artificial and forced chemistry between Wolverine and pretty Japanese granddaughter.

I literally cringed whenever they hooked up.

(5) Jean Gray bad dreams BS was just LAME

I can think of only two things I liked about the movie: (A) The Nagasaki A-bomb scene. Pretty sick, think it's the first time I've seen it portrayed up-close in any movie. (B) The black ninjas, doing their thing in the middle of the night and flying across roof-tops.

Other than that this movie was total scheisse.

The Wolverine is OK at best, even with Hugh Jackman's usual superb acting. Most of the action is mediocre and offers no surprises (you can tell from the situation who is gonna die and who is gonna hit who several seconds before they do so) with the exception of a few really great scenes, but these scenes are scattered very far apart.

What really brings the movie down isn't its action though, but rather the culprit lies in the writing. Not only does it defy science and physics every chance it gets -{{SPOILER: A poor representation of an atomic bomb hitting Nagasaki is shown through a memory SPOILER OVER}}- , but the depictions of certain powers make you wonder if the writers even know how Wolverine's powers work. -{{SPOILER: At one point a guy in a robot samurai (Real Steel, anyone?)somehow manages to CUT Wolverine's adamantium claws with a heated blade, despite the fact that adamantium is supposed to be unbreakable, with the only material within the same zone of strength being vibranium (what Captain America's shield is made of). But the film never offers any sort of clarification or explanation to this. Added to this is that by somehow drilling into his bones, the man in the suit gets younger as if he got Logan's healing factor (even though that's not how it works), yet a few seconds later he gets stabbed and his supposed healing power does nothing anymore? SPOILER OVER}}-

The character writing is poor and very 2-dimensional for everyone other than Logan, and so many developmental/emotional moments are thrown at you so fast that you don't have time to grab onto any of them. It's like there was a bag full of typical Hollywood ideas that the movie just flung on-top of the script.

Build onto this is a predictable and lazy script with a few cheap jokes and a forced romance, and you have a movie that does little more than half-entertain you. And to add to this, the after credits scene makes NO sense (powers wise) and backtracks/negates important aspects from the last movie, which is a very childish and unprofessional thing to do, even if the last movie was quite bad. The people at Marvel need to simply accept their mistake and move on, rather than try to dwell on things that people enjoyed from their first 2 successful X-Men movies.

However, people always overate movies when they first come out, especially for Marvel, so the rating you see here is probably not the one you would give it. But if you're willing to deny several of the things you thought you knew for an hour and a half to be sorta entertained, then you shouldn't have much of a problem for this movie. If not, i recommend reading the plot instead to get ready for the next movie.

Prologue:

With "The Wolverine" in theaters, what better time is there to look back on Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the character? He gave life to his first appearance as Wolverine in 2000's "X-Men." Now, he's on his sixth appearance in a movie as Logan. Hugh Jackman's outing as the clawed superhero is a better improvement over its predecessor X-Men Origins: Wolverine but doesn't have the charm of neither Bryan Singer's X-Men and X2 nor Mathew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class.

Plot Analysis:

The film unfolds from the after events of X-Men: The Last Stand – a wandering Logan living amidst a quiet life in the wild, tormented by hallucinations of loss of his lost love Jean Grey, giving him nightmares and questioning his existence but also of his time as a prisoner in Nagasaki during World War II. Logan meets a redhead woman, Yukio, who takes him to Japan to meet her boss, Yashida, a Japanese tech giant who is lying on his deathbed (a tech wonder) wishes to say thanks to Logan for saving him from the Fat man nuclear bomb during him time as a soldier in Nagasaki.

Yashida offers Logan to make him mortal, to feel what it's like to grow old, lead a normal life and a theoretically meaningful death. Logan refuses his offer and finds himself in the middle of family politics, protecting Yashida's granddaughter Mariko from a black ninja clan group 'Yakuza', followed by a few random action sequences, multiple disembowelment, and a ninja attack in the night, a funny feud on the roof of a bullet train speeding at 300 mph (seriously?). So far quiet good but the bland love story between Mariko and Logan - give me a break!

Viper, a mutant biologist injects a parasite to Logan, making him vulnerable to bullet shots and gives a taste of what it's like to feel pain, bleed, lose his healing ability and weaken his strength. Logan later operates himself and gets rid of Viper's parasite restoring his healing power. Casting of Viper was such a waste; guess the Director was confused whether or not to portray Viper who appears in only four scenes.

The casting of the ninja head Harada was just OK, it could've been better. The story concludes to the climax with a fight between Logan and the Silver Samurai, a giant robot built with adamantium, revealed to be Yashida who faked his death and extracts Logan's ability to heal and leaves Logan with bone claws, who eventually defeats Yashida. The fight feels silly but passable; at least it didn't end up in ripping apart places. Logan's exposure to nuclear radiation and the instant healing in CGI is good.

And wait for the post-credits scene, two years later at an airport Logan sees an ad about TRASK industries, he is encountered by Magneto (Ian Mckellen) now with his restored power, who warns him about a powerful force threatening to end mutant kind and to his shock sees Prof. X (Patrick Stewart) alive. This leaves the audience with few questions, Prof. X's survival? and Magneto's power restoration? With Peter Dinklage's (GOT fame) casting as Bolivar Trask into Singer's X- Men: Days of the Future Past, one can expect a decent flick in 2014.

Conclusion:

An eccentric storyline set in Japan, presence of only two mutants, makes Mangold's Wolverine a distinctive flick from those typical X-Men movies, sets itself as a standalone movie. A mild script, oddly shot action sequences, sloppy screenplay, it's just good enough but not great. You don't need to have seen the previous five films in which Hugh has starred as the brawny mutant, Logan. It's pretty tough to point out a fierce quote of the Wolverine's as they were from the previous movies, this one shall do "You wanted me to say goodbye to you personally? Well Sayonara!" Hugh looks more fearsome than ever and delivers good performance with ease. Be sure that you don't miss him. Go for 2D not 3D.

A generous 6 out of 10.

It is August 9th 1945, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is in Nagasaki, Japan, as the U.S. drops the bomb on Nagasaki, as most of the soldiers commit hara kiri, Logan saves one soldier, named Yashida (Ken Yamamoura) and Yashida is eternally grateful.

Years later, a girl named Yukio (Rila Fukushima) invites Logan to Japan to visit Yashida. Yukio is a mutant as well, with the power to see the future. Logan accepts the visit, and visits Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) who by now is an aging tech giant, worth billions, but also dying from the radiation he was exposed to during the war. Yashida is being treated by a shady doctor,(Svetlana Khodchenkova) who he calls his oncologist, but is mixing up chemicals much more complex to keep Yashida alive. Yashida makes a promise to Logan, he will give Logan what he desires most a mortal life, if Logan promises to protect his granddaughter, Mariko, (Tao Okamoto) from the Yakuza, the Japanese mob. Does Logan agree to protect Mariko? Who is Yashida's mysterious doctor? Does Logan get his mortality back from Yashida's mysterious doctor?

I have very mixed feelings about The Woverine. I wanted to like it a lot, because I really love the X-Men trilogy and even the first Wolverine movie. But it is precisely because of the X-Men movies that I feel like the Wolverine falls short. The X-Men movies were about large issues, the discovery of mutants, their impact on the world, and the human reaction to the mutants. This story feels smaller in scope and impact. And the substitute for story is gratuitous violence, and I'm not talking about comic book violence, people get shot and stabbed and right and that is disturbing. The story feels almost provincial, being shot mostly in Japan, and the cynical side of me says that was done to draw on the large Asian audience both in the U.S. and worldwide. There is a romance between Logan and Mariko, that seems forced, maybe because Jackman s 44, and Tao Okamoto is 28. A lot of the script is not worth the paper it's written on.

There are strong points to the story though. Jackman does a wonderful job reprising Logan, as a haunted soul, disturbed by nightmares and yearning for a "normal" life. Famke Janssen is superb reprising her role as Jean Grey, she is a siren, a specter, calling to Logan to join her in eternal rest. Rilla Fukushima, brings some fun and action to the movie as Logan's "bodyguard." The rest of the cast pretty much falls flat. The character played by Svetlana Khodchenkova could have been an interesting one, with a little more development, but they didn't do that.

There is one action scene that deserves mention, it is when Logan is fighting one of the Yakuza on top of a speeding bullet train, the rest of the action scenes are pretty violent, and largely unnecessary. The Wolverine clocks in at 126 minutes and could have used a lot of editing, but there is a tease for the third Wolverine movie, after the credits, and that looks worth watching, so stay until after the credits.

The Wolverine: A cat with no claws.

for more movie reviews, check out my blog reviewswithatude@wordpress.com

You know you are a bad director when...

you negate the conclusion of the previous movie.

your plot makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

you have more plot inconsistencies than Swiss cheese.

your favorite X-men character fights and moves with the grace of a rock.

your favorite X-men character acts like a cretin and his decisions are abysmally bad.

your favorite X-men character gets totally owned by a... ¿corporate samurai?.

your favorite X-men character loses his power more than half of the film.

your favorite X-men character cuts a tree with an axe and then gets tired.

you can cut adamantium.

you can drill into adamantium.

your adamantium cutter fails to cut flesh.

Japanese swords can withstand adamantium.

your villain is not even clownishly developed.

your villain has absolutely no motivation for how she acts. NONE. Worst villain ever.

your villain sheds her skin for no reason.

inexplicably you can suck a mutant of its power with a giant adamantium suit.

you kill a bear for no reason.

grandpa is a douche for the completely wrong reasons.

you take 50 rope arrows to your back and not try to get lose.

you have an awesome army of ninjas, yet in the end they decide to go on a sudden camping trip.

!!!!! you perform heart surgery on yourself, even if you can't heal back !!!!!

you don't pass out during heart surgery on yourself, but scream with excruciating pain when someone cuts your nails.

you live after performing heart surgery on yourself.

the best scene in the film is a scene after the credits.

you force a love relationship that is somehow immoral and has no meaning or conclusion.

your film has an ending without any conclusions; except Wolverine now has crappier claws.

You know you have a successful PR when:

people still pay to see this mess.

Be warned.

I'll admit it, I didn't care for the last solo Wolvie film (but I'm not alone in that one...I just can't forgive the treatment Deadpool got) but you can't really compare the two because this one is lightyears beyond that one.

I walked into the theater with minimum expectations--I wasn't expecting greatness but wasn't anticipating failure either--but this one blew me away.

Once again, Hugh Jackman proves that like how Downing is to Iron Man, he is to Wolverine but what I really liked is how the film takes Wolvie into a new direction and provides a character-driven story that sees Logan dealing with inner demons and new challenges that go beyond just slicing up as many people as possible with adamantium claws.

Then the action they toss in is just a delicious added treat! Just a really great X-title and comic book movie in general!

1. When Logan recovers from the atomic bomb blast, why does his hair grow back perfectly styled?

2. When he loses his healing ability and he extends his claws on the train, then retracts them, why do his knuckles instantly heal?

3. After Logan is shot several times in the chest, wouldn't the last thing he would want to do is go chop apart a huge fallen tree? Wouldn't his wounds open up and cause him to bleed to death?

4. It is very convenient that is Prometheus there was an alien removal machine and in Wolverine there was a color x-ray machine, but how could Logan operate on himself and reach to his heart to get the parasite? Beyond the fact that it would be awkward, beyond the fact that heart surgeons have to crack apart the ribs and then use a rib spreader, beyond the fact that his ribcage is saturated with adamantine, wouldn't the pain have caused him to black out?

5. If all Shingen had to do to get Logan's healing ability, wouldn't it have been easier for him to have drilled into his claws when he had him trapped in the chair, rather than building an adamantine transformer?

6. If Professor X found the ability to reintegrate his molecules like Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, why didn't he fix his spine so that he didn't have to use the wheelchair anymore? And grow some hair on his head? (eh, you even gotta wonder why in the 24th Century, Jon Luc Picard never heard about Rogaine)

7. If only part of Logan's adamantine claws were chopped off, why do complete bone ones grow back? What happened to the partial metal ones?

The movie was far too long on ninja fight scenes. I was beginning to fall asleep. Sad that the bad guy turned out to be someone whose life he saved. The Viper character was just creepy without any definable reason for why he was even there.

All in all, it was a waste of bad popcorn.