This summer I was so busy covering film festivals and the Television Critics Association press tour, I missed a lot of big movies. That meant I didn’t sample the new Will Smith movie, the new Bruce Willis movie or the new Denzel Washington movie until they came home to Blu-ray. So too I got to enjoy The Wolverine in the privacy of my home, and it must be like the third biggest superhero movie of the year after Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel.
Wolverine was never a character I found all that interesting. Even when I was reading comic books, I felt like seeing pictures of his claws stabbing people wasn’t all that exciting. Both of his powers were dramatically problematic. His invulnerability was only creative insofar as you can come up with creative “deaths” for him to survive, and admittedly The Wolverine comes up with some good ones. Then he’s got claws which, again, are just stabbing weapons. Obviously his personality is a big part of his appeal, but the brooding loner hero is nothing new in the world of film either. I suppose the X-Men movies work because we hadn’t seen that archetype applied to a world of superheroes before. Now, in his first solo movie that’s not a prequel to the other team movies that magically resets by the end, The Wolverine proves he can be pretty damn entertaining.
Opening in WWII, Logan (Hugh Jackman) helps a Japanese soldier survive the Nagasaki blast. Back then he still had his bone claws, in a nod to continuity established by X-Men Origins. In the present, he’s still dealing with the death of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen, appearing in so many dream sequences that you could make a case for giving her billing before the title with Jackman). He is summoned to Japan by Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), the soldier from WWII, who wants to give him the gift of mortality. Yashida himself is on his techno-posturepedic deathbed. Before Logan can really consider the offer, Yashida dies and Logan is caught up in a Yakuza/ninja war.
What’s cool about The Wolverine is that it’s a culture piece about Logan learning the customs and values of Japan. Essentially, it’s his Rising Sun. That’s not to say it has any less action than the usual superhero movie. In fact, violence breaks out at regular intervals. It’s just that the tone of the story in between that violence is enough to give the entire film a different feel from the X-Men franchise.
I thought it was cool that this film allowed, or rather forced, Logan to take the time to heal from his wounds. It turns out this is actually a plot point, that something happened to him, making it take longer and longer to heal from injuries like gunshots and stab wounds. Presumably, he will ultimately become mortal as promised unless he does something about it. That’s all a bit of narrative waffling to me. Sure, it gives Logan some vulnerability, but I wouldn’t say it gives the film “stakes.” There’s no chance Wolverine is going to die before the next X-Men so if the intention was stakes, that’s really disingenuous. This is a series about an immortal superhero, so all his fans have already bought into that. Also, if he’s losing his healing powers, shouldn’t his claws bleed every time they come out?
Logan doesn’t seem to really be thinking about the benefits of mortality either, although he’s not a character who would be forthcoming with his introspective thoughts. I think even the resolution of his Jean Grey guilt is cursory, but it doesn’t make the A-story any less fun.
The Wolverine lets Logan be as antisocial as he’s ever been allowed in his Hollywood outings. I like The Wolverine as a defender of backwoods wildlife in the beginning, and he actually kills in cold blood. Or at least, he would have if his victim hadn’t been spared by a clever screenwriting trick. The intention works though.
There are some clever action sequences, particularly the bullet train fight. It’s clearly visual effects, because nobody’s going to believe they shut down the bullet train and let real stuntmen, let alone Hugh Jackman, play on it. As an effects sequence though, the beats are constructed as a series of clever gags, the characters hopping over obstacles, and Logan winning by wits as often as he wins with power. There’s also one part where Logan gets punched in the face and we hear the clang of his adamantium skull. That’s a fun touch.
The fighting is not exactly martial arts. It’s more Logan swinging his arms at swordsmen in a series of strikes and parries, like old school Hollywood sword fights. At least these fights are clear and choreographed, not just a shaky free for all like so many of today’s movie fight scenes. Logan is joined by Yashida’s badass samurai Yukio (Rila Fukushima, in her first film) who adds some cool moves to the action, although it also means we endure a lot of cross cutting between her fights and Logan’s fights.
I would have thought that the extended version would add in a lot of blood to the stabbing, but there’s really only one additional scene that features significant additional bloodshed. The stabs are mostly out of frame, but that’s a valid artistic way to present violent combat in a less graphic way. I wasn’t clamoring for a gorier version. I only suspected that could be a selling point of an alternate cut, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Other mutants are woven into The Wolverine effectively. Mainly it’s the poison tongued Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who is just a character they have to deal with, because this is still a world in which mutants just exist. It’s not blatant like in Origins where they practically blared, “Look! This is Gambit! Buy the action figure!”
I have a feeling there’s going to be a double dip special edition of The Wolverine early next year to tie in with X-Men: Days of Future Past. There are scant extras. I say scant despite a 53 minute behind the scenes, but that’s pretty standard. They focus on the significance of the Japanese story and shooting in Japan, fairly mainstream with slick interview soundbites. The alternate ending includes a fanboy reference that made me smile. I think you’ll like it. The set tour of X-Men: Days of Future Past is only two and a half minutes, and it’s just Bryan Singer walking around empty sets. Jackman and Nicholas Hoult wave to the camera. They’re too careful about spoilers to really give away much, though Singer says that one set gets scary in a future setting.
The Wolverine is fun. It delivers everything I know about the character and more fun and atmosphere than I could have hoped, since I am admittedly indifferent to the character myself. It’s really only a standalone Wolverine movie in that Storm and Rogue don’t show up. Maintaining the sequel ties to The Last Stand isn’t a bad thing, though I wonder if they’re still hedging their bets a little. It’s not X-Men 4 only as much as Iron Man 3 isn’t quite The Avengers 2, or Avengers 1.5. Maybe the third spinoff, A Wolverine, will be completely separate from the franchise.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
