Throwback Thursday Review: 'The Wolverine'

Sorry for the delay on this review as this past week had been quite eventful for me. I wasn't able to find time to rewatch The Wolverine this week as I was watching the Academy Awards Sunday evening, saw Get Out on Monday, went to an early screening of Table 19 Tuesday, went to a Kong: Skull Island screening Wednesday, watched Logan Thursday, and then had to balance work and school on top of that all week. Anyways, I'm reviewing The Wolverine to coincide with Logan's release since Logan will be Hugh Jackman's final outing as Wolverine and The Wolverine is the only solo Wolverine movie I've yet to review. Reviews you can expect throughout the remainder of March include Throwback Thursday Reviews over King Kong (2005), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Spider-Man 2 and new releases Logan, Kong: Skull Island, Beauty and the Beast (2017), The Belko Experiment, Power Rangers, Life, The Boss Baby, The Zookeeper's Wife, and Ghost in the Shell (2017).

'The Wolverine' Review

The Wolverine picks up relatively soon after X-Men: The Last Stand with grizzled Logan living in the woods to keep himself distanced from humanity and prevent himself from harming others. Logan is soon invited to Tokyo, Japan by a dying Yashida, a man he saved back during the second World War, keen on repaying his life debt by granting Logan mortality. Logan isn't quite interested but soon discovers something has inhibited his healing factor when he's shot and doesn't recover. He then must protect Yashida's granddaughter from the yakuza, a Japanese mafia of sorts.

The Wolverine is directed by James Mangold, whose filmography consists of actual Westerns like his 3:10 to Yuma remake or films that evoke Western themes like Walk The Line. Mangold brings that mentality to The Wolverine, deciding to mesh a Japanese setting with an intrinsically Western character. An interesting notion that nearly succeeds till everything falls apart in the film's third act.

Mangold and cinematographer Ross Emery do a wonderful job highlighting the serenity of Japan in contrast to the raving action as Wolverine fights dirty through shoji screens and on top of a bullet train. It's really a shame the berserker mutant was constrained to a PG-13 rating though as you never quite feel like the envelope is being pushed in terms of what Wolverine does, supposedly the extended R-rated director's cut is a better version of the film but I've yet to see it.

The screenplay penned by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank has some interesting predicaments for the Wolverine but none of them quite pay off the way you'd like them to. The idea of making Wolverine vulnerable is fascinating and I feel it was well explored but the explanation behind it verges to be a little too cartoonish in contrast to the realistic portrayal of the character. The third act also leans too far on the comic side of things with a CG showdown and some lackluster reveals. I must admit the first two acts of The Wolverine are engaging though and really intricately laid-out but the reliance on exposition and setup keep it from holding up to how I remembered seeing it back in 2013. Meanwhile in the music department, Marco Beltrami's compositions honor the both film's oriental environment and the action on display.

Hugh Jackman's excellent as always in the role of Wolverine (no surprises there) while Rila Fukushima's a capable sidekick in Yukio and Tao Okamoto is left to play the standard damsel in distress trope as Mariko, who admittedly has more spunk than the typical damsel. I just watched The Wolverine yesterday and honestly can't remember much of what Brian Tee, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Will Yun Lee contributed aside from being morally ambiguous henchmen, their characters are relatively two-dimensional but I've got to commend the filmmakers for casting Asian talent in the roles. Svetlana Khodchenkova though is in an entirely different film altogether though as Viper, a vile temptress reminiscent to Batman & Robin's Poison Ivy.

In summary, The Wolverine had potential to be a great Wolverine movie, but settles for just being a good one thanks to a cartoonish third act contrast to the grounded beginning and middle portions.

Film Assessment: B-