Review: The Wolverine

Twentieth-Century Fox Film Corporation/Marvel Entertainment

I remember one of my friends saying before how they thought it was weird that Marvel and Fox decided to take the Wolverine story-line the furthest out of all the other X-Men/mutants available to them. I know nothing about the comics myself, but according to those who know them, other X-Men have more interesting and cooler plots and complexes than the self-healing mutant with retractable claws and infamous side-burns. Still, it cannot be denied that with the first X-Men films, Hugh Jackman created a very like-able and entertaining character. There's no doubt that Marvel and Fox went with Wolverine over the others because of Jackman's box-office appeal, and even though 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine got panned by the reviewers and generally disliked by everyone that I know, that didn't stop it from making $179 million compared to the $150 million budget. That's not a huge profit margin to speak of especially compared to other Marvel films, but still, it more than suggested that people were still into Hugh and X-Men.

So now we have The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line), and set in Japan. The initial premise set up by the trailers suggested that Wolverine would be struggling with the option of giving up his mutant ability to regenerate in order to finally be able to live as a mortal. The "curse of immortality" plot-point has been used in a number of movies in the past, but it still presents an array of possibilities for character development and substance beyond Wolverine fighting ninjas and samurais and watching cuts and gashes magically disappear from his body. The Japanese setting also promised some potentially cool, pretty settings and mis en scene for Wolverine to explore as well as other, interesting mutants to encounter. In short, with this new plot-line and creative team, The Wolverine seemed like it could deliver what Origins promised but failed to do.

Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel

Sadly, the curse of X-Men 3 still hangs over all things mutant (X-Men: First Class aside). The Wolverine doesn't ever break the surface of Wolverine's character and issues. In every X-Men film, he is presented as this mysterious character with a long, dark, complex past, and while each subsequent Wolverine film reveals more of the events in his past, they never shed more light on him as a person. OK, so he's still haunted by the death of Jean Grey and is lonely because everyone he loves dies, etc, but that's it. Although maybe that's all there is to the character of Wolverine? His one problem of immortality doesn't go much beyond that whereas a character like Magneto in X-Men: First Class and his problems with humanity and whatnot stem from things that go far beyond and have nothing to do with his mutant ability to control metal. Wolverine, on the other hand, just struggles to accept the fact that he's destined to be a badass (or "soldier" as he calls it on the movie) with knives built into his hands. I don't know about you, but that would be so cool, and I know I'm not the only one who put butter knives between their fingers as a kid and ran around pretending to stab their brothers (maybe not? no? oh well). As it stands, this film failed to capitalize on the one major theme it had going for it in regards to its characters and titular lead.

Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel

Besides this, the plot is very uneven. Most of all it suffers from the problem made most famous by Spider Man 3: too many villains! Granted, there is one, main bad guy at the very end, but before that there is at least 3 that Wolverine has to fight/deal with in succession. So this problem in itself creates confusion and lack of a clear focus. Not to mention that the only mutant villain in the film, a poisonous, lizard, Dr. lady who can spit venom and shed her skin, isn't given any background or proper introduction whatsoever. So the audience can never really come to truly hate her because we never know who she is besides the fact that she can melt people's faces with acid poison. On top of this, the writers attempt to throw in a love story between Wolverine and the grand-daughter, Mariko, of the old dude who promised he could end Wolverine's immortality which feels very rushed and forced. Plus, there's the even more confusing love-triangle created by the leader of the ninjas who grew up with Mariko and is trying to protect her like Wolverine is trying to do but he's also a bad guy? But then he's not? That whole thing never really made sense either. And don't even get me started on the giant, metal Samurai robot Wolverine has to fight at the end. That thing felt like they pulled it straight out of Resident Evil or Sucker Punch and was completely unnecessary. 

Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel

Plot issues aside, one of my main beefs with The Wolverine is that it didn't feel like an X-Men movie. Mock Origins all you want, but at least it had more than 3 mutants in the entire film! Wolverine, Yukio (this ninja chick with red hair who can see the future), and poisonous lizard lady, that's it! One of the most entertaining and endearing things about the X-Men movies is meeting all the other mutants and getting to see them use their powers in really cool ways. It's basically the same thing and feeling you get from the Harry Potter movies by seeing them use all their magic tricks. But you don't get any of that from this film. It's just watching Wolverine get shot and stabbed a bunch of times while fighting samurais and ninjas. So basically a kind of action that you can get in almost any other kind of movie. With an X-Men movie you're supposed to get something different, but not here.

All this being said, it's not that this movie was hugely disappointing. I had very low expectations going into it, and overall, I got what I expected. Even though I haven't seen Origins, I'd be willing to bet that The Wolverine is better. Still, it did very little to convince me that Wolverine is a worthwhile mutant to build a franchise around. I'd much rather see Magneto or Gambit or someone get their own story-line. No offense Hugh, but I don't think you should take that $100 million contract for another 4 Wolverine movies you were just offered.