The Wolverine (2013)

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The Wolverine Movie Review

The Wolverine is a 2013 superhero film starring Hugh Jackman. It is the sixth installment in the X-Men franchise and the second one with Wolverine. It is flawed, but pretty solid.

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“How did you know there’s a pool down there?

I didn’t.“

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Logan travels to Japan where he meets an old acquaintance and struggles with guilt. The plot is basic and not particularly memorable or great. The conflict is solid and I liked the villain and his goal. It was cartoonish, but better and more dramatic than most of the other superhero villains and their motivations. But I particularly liked the setting of Japan as I loved the country and it was great to get an X-Men film revolve almost entirely in it. It was a good excuse for the series to venture into a different part of the world.

The characters aren’t the greatest here, but are quite solid and some are very interesting. Again I liked that it features Japanese characters and actors, that was refreshing to see and those characters were some of the highlights. Mariko was a bit dull to me, but Yukio is very likable and I really liked her. She was both a genuinely sympathetic person and a great female character who provided some excellent action sequences.

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Of course I liked the villain as I said. The shared past between him and Logan was well explored and was a solid setup for the conflict. But all of the other Japanese men here were very forgettable and boring to be honest. Viper is quite good, somewhat typical, but a solid and strong villain. As for Logan himself, I still believe that he isn’t suited for feature films and as a main character, but he is here much better developed than in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” which was an immensely weaker film in comparison to this one. And Hugh Jackman is naturally the acting highlight, delivering a strong performance once again. I really liked Rila Fukushima too.

The Wolverine features some quite good and exciting action scenes, especially in the first half. But I agree with almost everyone that its third act was highly disappointing. In terms of storytelling, it was an okay conclusion, but in terms of the action, it was rather weak and bland. Whenever in these movies they fight in a building like this one, I roll my eyes. And the presence of a giant stupid robot frustrated me even more. Another thing that annoyed me was the overwhelming presence of romance scenes which were dull and unnecessary.

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Another problem with this movie is its lack of humor and an overly serious approach. This character has always been quite comedic and here he is too serious and played overly straight. The overall tone to the movie was way too serious and dramatic. But I liked the pacing of the movie. Yes, the film is just too long, clocking in at over two hours which is too much definitely, but it isn’t dull and is almost consistently involving. The pacing is deliberately slow and that was a good choice as it led to a better crafted plot and more memorable characters. The score is not great and the special effects are pretty forgettable and standard, but the movie is otherwise visually pleasing with some very solid city imagery as well as some memorable interiors. It utilized its setting surprisingly well.

The Wolverine is a very flawed movie owing to its overlong running time, overly serious approach with an unfortunate lack of humor and a third act which is disappointing in its bland action, but the action was otherwise well executed and entertaining, the characters are mostly well utilized along with its interesting setting and the film features a solid villain and conflict. It is far from the best entries in the series, but it is solid nevertheless.