Review of The Wolverine

Action, Superhero

Starring Hugh Jackman

Runtime: 126 Minutes

Rated PG-13

The Wolverine is the perfect movie for date night. Guys get to watch Hugh Jackman tear apart ninjas and yakuza thugs with his razor claws in a decently paced action flick. Girls get to watch Hugh Jackman take off his shirt. Don’t lie to me ladies, I know you’re only in this for the abs. His glorious, glorious abs.

In this film the title character, who you might remember from a handful of previous X-films, goes to Japan and gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving a billion-dollar corporation and ancient ninja clans. Basic Japanese stuff. Normally this would not be a big deal as Wolverine’s has the power to not die ever, but the plot takes care of this by magically making him mortal, forcing him to rely only on his claws and his two-foot height advantage over every other character to survive. 

The plot is needlessly overcomplicated, falling into the same trap as several recent movies: too many villains. This is becoming a trope, when at least two different people appear as if they could be the main villain of the film, you can rest assured that neither of them is and there’s some last minute plot twist coming in which a third mega-villain will be revealed.

This movie really shines during the actions scenes, and in this respect The Wolverine outpaces its predecessor, X-men Origins: Wolverine with the same ease that a Ferrari outpaces a Radio Flyer filled with cement blocks and dog feces.  One fight on top of a speeding bullet train is particularly well constructed.

 Hugh Jackman manages to give Wolverine a character arc through sheer force of will. He brings surprising depth to a character best known for disemboweling more people than Freddy Krueger and Jason combined. 

The weirdest part about this film was how much time it spent reminding the audience of the events of X3: The Last Stand. But then I stayed through the credits and it all made sense. It is a little bizarre that we live in a world now where entire movies can be produced solely on the justification that they are good advertisements for other, upcoming films. I think that’s what happened with The Wolverine, but the result is watchable, and meets my ninja quota for the month, so I won’t complain.