The Wolverine - Review

For me, I wasn't 100% sure about this movie from watching the trailer, most specifically the bullet train sequence which seemed a little crazy to me.  Nevertheless, I'm glad to have been proven wrong about that scene, as it was done well!  The Wolverine, unexpectedly, turned out to be a great movie, much better than X3: The Last Stand and the X-Men Origins movie (I still liked Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth in that), and definitely along the lines of X2 and X-Men: First Class, or at least in that direction which is good.

They did well with the casting.  Hugh Jackman is ripped as ever as Logan (thanks to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's dieting and workout routine).  When dressed in black for his earlier scenes in Japan, he totally reminded me of Sabertooth from Origins, very badass!  Rila Fukushima as Yukio kicks some serious ass and would give Black Widow a run for her money. Tao Okamoto in her 1st role ever did a great job, and the rest of the Japanese cast (including everyone's favorite samurai from The Last Samurai, Hiroyuki Sanada) were great.  Without any spoilers, I thought the Silver Samurai character worked, although I would've preferred the original incarnation of the mutant, where he wasn't a huge robot and he possessed the tachyon field generation power.  However, his purpose in the movie would probably have been different if so.  My biggest problem was actually the character of Viper, as I feel she just didn't belong and could've been substituted with another character.  And I know the majority of people watching this film will be male, but that doesn't mean Famke Janssen needs to be wearing a revealing nighty during her "cameo" scenes.  Sure, they were going for sex appeal but it didn't really make sense and was actually kind of distracting in this type of theme for the movie (although some would argue that was the point of it).

Nevertheless, the story was centered on Wolverine and the aftermath of the events of X3: The Last Stand, namely his killing of Jean Grey.  He journeys to Japan after an event in his past brings him there, and the heart of the movie was basically about him moving on with his life.  The action sequences were breathtakingly well-done and grounded to reality, especially since there were really only 3 mutants in the entire film.  The core was story, which is always priority in my book.  One part of the ending during the final battle was a bit confusing to me because I don't recall how they explained a certain thing to happen or why it works, but aside from that, it was great and definitely sets up the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past with the Wolverine character and how comic-book (or animated series) fans knows him to be.

Finally, do not run to the restroom after the movie is over.  There is a post-credits scene and it's not at the very end of the film but maybe a minute or two into the credits, and it was AWESOME!!!  No spoilers here.  Fun movie, well made, and I recommend this to any X-Men/Wolverine/comic book fan, and of course to the ladies who want to see Hugh Jackman's ripped bod... Wolverine is back!

8/10