The Wolverine boldly follows on from the events of the critical flop X-Men: Last Stand (something yet to be committed to in seven years) as 20th Century Fox maintains the rights to the characters of Marvel's franchise.
We see Logan completely lost and alone after the tragic events seen in the earlier films, finding himself at odds with his nature and purposeless. However when a man from his past returns with an offer to end his brooding self-pity, Logan might rediscover himself.
The meat of this film is that Logan's contact, a Japanese genius in control of a super high-tech facility, is dying and wants Logan's mutant healing ability. Eventually Logan loses his powers and becomes mortal. He must fight to defend the man's grand daughter from Yakuza assassins without his powers.
At last we have a Wolverine spin-off film that is justified. I found the last installment, Wolverine: Origins, to be a dazing, absurd waste of time; it told me nothing I didn't already know about the character. Here at least we can see a vulnerable Logan, and how despite his weakness he still battles with ferocity! It probably makes the best of what The Last Stand gave the character.
This is mostly descriptive of the film's opening act. It is a surprisingly moody, dour beginning but not without Logan's signature aggressive humor and superiority. I enjoyed this, it proved the film wasn't solely reliant on bravado and ridiculous action scenes.
While I liked this and Wolverine's loss of powers, something goes wrong towards the end of the film... It certainly does not end as powerfully as it began and continued, and I can only attribute this with some pretty random plot devices and blatantly obvious "twists". (Logan is in a hurry to save someone so he.... gets off his motorbike and decides to walk the last two miles?)
Still, despite a few glaring wobbles in the plot and storytelling towards the end, and some "indescribable tech" that does what it does because it can, I enjoyed the movie. There isn't much to say, but it has good action and a refreshing look on a well established character.
It is certainly better than Origins.
Yes, they do find as many opportunities to get Hugh Jackman shirtless.
Plus there is a nice stinger mid-credit roll that links into next year's Days of Future Past!
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