The Wolverine

When you go through the Marvel filmography there aren’t any instances of the comic heavyweight being able to duplicate the dark complexity of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Seeing as The Avenger grossed exactly $1 gazillion, they’re okay with that. But as a fan, I’d like to see that realism among the Marvel icons. The Wolverine is the best example of this storytelling we’ve seen so far. Taking place after X-Men: The Last Stand, Hugh Jackman’s Logan is attempting to cope with the loss of Jean Grey while dealing with the constant struggle of his immortality. When a man Logan saved during World War II sends for him, he gets in the middle of a power struggle that forces him to become the Wolverine again.

After fans weren’t happy with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the parade of characters on display, which fans had asked for by the way, this film is intentionally reserved in many aspects. Heavy on dialogue and emotion, this is Wolverine’s movie without anyone else butting in. There’s no Sabretooth, Gambit, Storm or Rogue to fill screen time and no big cameo distractions to take the audience’s attention off of Wolverine (until the credits). There is a bit of canonical confusion regarding what Wolverine should remember. If you recall, he suffered from total amnesia in his previous solo film, so WWII would be long forgotten. But he did remember some stuff in X2, so this may be like that. Who knows? It’s a confusing topic and it seems the writers didn’t want to think about it either.

Jackman has become synonymous with this character after playing Wolverine in a lead role five times to great success. He even beefed up more this time. It is a bit disappointing when the over-the-top action moments sneak into the film though. A fight on top of a bullet train is absolutely ridiculous (but kind of cool) and the villain billed as the main antagonist, The Silver Samurai, comes across as a Transformer with a sword in the few scenes he appears in. The decision to tone down the presence of a main villain works well. It breaks the monotony that comic book movies often have with straightforward scripts. Grounding a character as huge as Wolverine is a great step in the sustainability of the X-Men franchise and comic book genre. I hope Jackman never grows tired of playing Wolverine because, he’s getting very close to icon status.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.