Review: The Wolverine

The Wolverine

By Steve Wood

As a fan of the old X-Men cartoons back in the 90’s, anything relating to these characters gives me a hard on, with the exception of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, that is.

Opening with a flashback to WW2, Nagasaki to be exact, we see Logan as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp, as the big bomb drops; Logan saves a Japanese soldier by tossing him down a hole, which he himself was being kept. Here we see Logan’s actual mutant ability – rapid health generation. People tend to forget that the iconic claws are NOT part of his abilities. As this was all a flashback via dream sequence, we see Logan wake up next to Jean, and he wakes up again, as this was a dream within a dream.

We meet Yukio, a little Japanese chick that seems to know Logan, turns out she was sent by the very man whom Logan saved back in WW2, whose name is Yashida. Now, a decrepit old man, has a dying wish to meet with Logan one more time, and repay him for his courage.

Yashida, wanting the “gift” of immortality, tells Logan that the real reason he was brought there was to take his abilities, and have them for himself. He explains that there is a way to pass along Logan’s mutant abilities to another person. With Logan refusing to do so, he leaves but not before Yashida can ask him to protect his granddaughter, Mariko, as she is wanted dead by an unknown party.

As Logan is forced to defend Mariko, the action is fast and plenty, but with one complaint; after four previous movies, there is still no blood on his claws after countless stabbings. Sure, this is PG-13, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of blood.

Logan is plagued with visions of Jean throughout the film, but not only when he is dreaming. While Jackman is a good fit for Logan, his acting is very monotone in this role, which is somewhat of a downfall. I understand that Logan is always serious, somewhat sarcastic, and basically a dick, and all of that is well and good in a cartoon or comic book atmosphere, but it never really flies while on the big screen.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Logan has lost his powers, the nurse tending to Yashida is Viper, a mutant in the comic universe whose only mutant ability is slowed aging, but uses poison weaponry and has the physical attributes of an Olympic athlete. Here, Viper is shown to have the ability to suppress mutant’s abilities by blowing in their face, or if doing this to a human, will kill them. She also has an elongated tongue and can seemingly spit poison.

My biggest complaint here would have to be with the Silver Samurai himself (itself?). As any X-Men fan boy would know, the Silver Samurai is actually the illegitimate son of Yashida, who dons heavy metal samurai armor. In the comics, he is slightly above average physically, at 6’6, but his mutant ability allows him to generate energy from within his body, normally passed through his swords, allowing him to cut through anything. Here, he is about 10’ tall, and a man-made machine constructed of adamantium, which is quite a step down from the original character…along with another bullshit change to the character that I won’t spoil

On top of that, how the Silver Samurai is defeated is complete bullshit, considering the aspects I just explained regarding his powers in the first place. I’ll leave Logan and the Samurai’s battle alone so you can see it for yourself. It should be no surprise that Logan comes out on top, since he will be in the next X-Men movie.

This is easily the most intense X-Men related movie to date, as there is little to no comedic elements. We do see a turn in the way Logan thinks of his own life, as he has always been nonchalant about his own life, but now he finds a little more comfort in his immortality.

No cameos to speak of, which is somewhat surprising, and I’m curious to see how this ties in with X-Men: Days of Future Past.

7/10