With the recent superhero movie
releases such as the vastly disappointing Iron Man 3 and the less
than cerebral Man of Steel, I feared The Wolverine would follow the
trend. Thankfully I was not disappointed for a third time.
This review is fairly lengthy so if you
don't have the time to waste on an in-depth review then skip to the
Good vs Bad section at the bottom for my opinion in a nutshell.
The Wolverine has very few minuses and
a lot of pluses for me. Logan's healing factor played a crucial role
in the storyline and was artfully done. We're given a taste of how
powerful his healing factor is in the first scene and then it's
shortly all but taken away leaving Logan uncharacteristically
vulnerable but more courageous and resilient because of it. Logan
takes bullets and knives and fights on in spite of his dulled healing
factor, showing just how awesome he is.
The love story didn't disappoint
either. This is not your generic Hollywood token romance inserted
into an action movie either. I won't go too much into it but the
'girl' was in fact the prize like most films of this nature but it's
not all what it seems and I think it was done well. The nuances were
there for the viewer to interpret them as much as they cared without
boring some audience members that could care less. I think it was
just enough to add dimension and subtlety to the story while staying
consistent with previous films and close enough to comic 'lore' for
the aficionados out there.
I really loved how well Jackman and the
writers portrayed the Wolverine's toughness while never making him
feel like a phony He-Man. When he was weakened he was still the
deadliest man alive and when his healing factor was 100% he was
unstoppable, rage personified. These two 'gears' as I'll call them
were well balanced and timed throughout the movie and you'll just
have to go see it to find out which order they occur.
One slight misrepresentation of Logan's
powers was his strength or should I call it super strength? Logan has
three powers:
1. Super dooper healing factor
2. Heightened senses
3. It's artificial and made possible by
his healing factor but he also has an Adamantium laced skeleton.
Notice that super strength does not
appear on that list. I counted at least four separate occasions when
Logan performs feats of strength that can only be referred to as
super. Some were subtler than others but they were all unnecessary
and added very little.
The worst part of this otherwise very
good but not GREAT movie was the weak villain/antagonist factor. It's
a problem that plagues the vast majority of movies and in this case
The Wolverine is no exception. What makes The Wolverine stand
somewhat apart in its inferiority is that the villain was not only
uninteresting and lacked presence but that throughout the movie I
wasn't even sure who the bad guy was. I mean, I knew who they were,
there were at least three defined villains but none of them really
stood out. Their villainy was diffused and diluted among them and you
can bet that none of them came close to great villains such as The
Joker, Bane or even the T1000.
That The Wolverine thrived in spite of
these handicaps shows how far Jackman's Wolverine has come since the
first X-men. That a movie can stand strong on the basis of a great
protagonist and little else speaks volumes for Jackman's performance
and dedication to the character.
Oh, and do yourself a favour X-men fans
and don't miss the after credits epilogue. It's the best one since
X-men 3. Back when Marvel epilogues meant something.
The Good:
- Way better than Wolverine: X-men
Origins (which I liked at the time).
- Best portrayal of Wolverine yet.
Jackman looks great and is as gritty as hell.
- First truly solo Wolverine movie.
- Nuanced and subtle romantic thread
that is neither in your face nor the two dimensional "hero gets
the girl" type affair.
The Bad:
- Weak antagonists. Too many and none
fully present or adequately realized.
- Minor inconsistencies with
Wolverine's mutant abilities. Will only bother super nerds like
myself.

P.S. Did I mention that Hugh Jackman
looks incredible in this episode? Here's hoping he can keep it up for
another decade.
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