by Joseph Rossi
Much to my surprise The Wolverine is pretty good. It’s far better then the character’s first tepid solo outing. This film borrows from a graphic novel that puts the character far away from his X-Men cohorts and plants him firmly in a more dark and simple story.
The film starts off as Japan is being bombed during the Second World War. Logan, not yet Wolverine, is a POW, who saves Yashida, a Japanese solider from certain death. Able to heal himself and thus being somewhat immortal, Logan walks away unscathed. The solider is in awe and pledges to find out the secrets of the man who saved him.
Cut to the present. Logan is a grizzled looking mountain man living off the bottle due to the loss of the love of his life, Jean (the film takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand). Discovered by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), Logan is taken to Tokyo to visit her boss, Yashida, the solider from WW2, who is now a billionaire technology mogul on his deathbed. The old man wants to cheat death and needs Logan to give up his powers in exchange for mortality which quite a good plot point for a character that struggles with his longevity on earth.
What separates this film with the others in the franchise is that it’s really simple. The plot is not complicated. There’s no baggage dragging on from the last few films. I have never been a real fan of the series. I always found there to be too many characters that just run around and flash their mutant powers for the fan boys and girls of the audience. Here, Logan is on a quest. He basically must protect Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), the heir to his empire, from Viper, actress Svetlana Khodchenkova’s evil doctor, who is really a snake in the grass. Throw in some cool ninja action and a great battle atop a bullet train and that’s it. Cut and dry.
I credit the lean direction of James Mangold who brings a rather steady hand to what could have been just an action picture. Here, the action does take a back seat to – gasp – character development, which is a rare thing in these films. More credit to the power of Hugh Jackman who brings it home in the role that made him a star. Jackman was the only actor in these films that made me care about his or her plight.
This is, I think, the best X-Men movie that’s not a true X-Men movie. It’s not jumbled. It takes its time. Most importantly, we care about Logan. And for me that’s the true testament for this endeavor.
