Fanboys Anonymous

The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold, written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank, starring Hugh Jackman (Logan), Tao Okamoto (Mariko), Rila Fukushima (Yukio), Hiroyuki Sanada (Shingen), Svetlana Khodchenkova (Viper) and Famke Janssen (Jean Grey).

When X-Men Origins: Wolverine turned out to be as bad as it was, the future of the X-Men franchise was in question. Particularly, how could they do a spinoff if the one that was guaranteed to succeed was met so poorly? Ever since then, there had been rumors that we'd see another solo Wolverine film and this year, we finally got one. Promised to be much better and "the Wolverine film we've all been waiting for", how does it measure up? It's time for another REVIEWPOINT as we break down the action film's hits and misses.



As always, let's start with the bad news first.


1. ALL JEAN GREY CAN DO IS LAY DOWN NEXT TO LOGAN

Seriously, that's all she does this entire film. Every single scene that she's involved in is her laying down next to him. That's it. Famke must have been pissed that she had to do about 10 scenes of the exact same thing.

2. VIPER

What a pointless character! In all honesty, I can't figure out a single purpose that she served in the film. Her powers are to be exactly like a snake (why? why does that factor in here?) and to be toxic. Okay. Maybe if Wolverine had an aversion to snakes or, I don't know, the toxin was the factor that made him temporarily lose his healing factor? Nope. Instead, it's some nanobot Matrix type squid-looking thing that does the job. They could have had any normal human implant that in him...or, if you had to make it a mutant, you could give them cooler powers and hire a better actor.

3. UNNECESSARY ROMANCE

If the whole film is about how Logan loves Jean, why was there a shoehorned random romance with Mariko and Logan? If anything, it seemed like Yukio had a crush on Logan. Mariko had a failed fiance, a failed relationship with a guy that she loved from childhood, and just kind of boned Wolverine when he clearly didn't care about her. They may have had a romance in the comic, but it just didn't serve much of a purpose in this film in my opinion.


1. THE ACTION

Logan kills people left and right, like he should. There are some decent action sequences that are fun, most predominantly the bullet train scene.

2. THE END TAG CREDIT COOKIE

Midway through the credits, you see a sneak peak for X-Men: Days of Future Past in typical Marvel Cinematic Universe style (despite this not being in that line of films). Fucking awesome! I don't want to say what it is, but it was pretty damn cool.

3. A FRESH, MODERN TAKE ON AN ODD CHARACTER

Comic purists might be angered that the Silver Samurai is not exactly how it is in the books. There's no teleportation, it isn't Kenuichio Harada, no mutant energy. Still, I think it was an odd way of doing things that they somehow were able to pull off.


If you go into the movie expecting it to be the next Iron Man, Batman Begins, or any of those other "really good movies that just happen to be about superheroes", you'll be disappointed. However, if you go into it expecting it to just be a fun, random X-Men film, such as watching an adaptation of a one-shot graphic novel (similar to how DC does their animated films), then it'll be received better.

Would I recommend it? Overall, yes. The movie isn't going to win any Oscars, nor is it going down in history as one of the best comic book films of all time. Still, it's entertaining and it works as a continuation of the classic character's story.

If you want to check out some more recent Reviewpoint articles: White House Down | The Lone Ranger | Man of Steel | Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox