Review: The Wolverine

Hugh Jackman is back as the clawed Wolverine (AKA Logan) who is brooding in the Canadian wilderness and still haunted by the memory of his deceased lover, Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). A young Japanese swordswoman (Rila Fukushima) urges Wolverine to leave his den of misery and come to Tokyo with her to see an old acquaintance; The Japanese soldier whose life Wolverine saved back in WWII. Played in the present by Haruhiko Yamanouchi, he’s now an elderly and apparently dying head of a technology company. He dies shortly after Wolverine arrives, and the man’s death sees a whole lot of nefarious goings on as everyone seems to want control of the dead man’s company. Wolverine manages to prevent the soldier/tycoon’s granddaughter (Tao Okamoto) from Yakuza threat, but whilst they are on the run, Wolverine discovers that he’s not healing as quickly as he normally would and is getting weaker. For this he can thank the dead man’s carer, who is in fact a mutant named Viper (and played by Svetlana Khodchenkova. Hiroyuki Sanada turns up as the deceased man’s son, and Okamoto’s father.

 

The previous Wolverine film “X Men Origins: Wolverine” (a prequel to the “X-Men” trilogy) was a tedious, filmed on the cheap disappointment, but based on the trailer, I thought this 2013 film from director James Mangold (“Cop Land”, the very fine “Walk the Line”, and the highly underrated “Identity” and “Knight and Day”) and writers Mark Bomback (“Die Hard 4.0” and “Unstoppable”) & Scott Frank (“Dead Again”, “Get Shorty”, “Minority Report”) looked somewhat better. In particular its Asian setting intrigued me, with the promise of some martial-arts flavoured action. Nope, this one’s a bore too, and very, very dumb. I’ve seen some ridiculous ‘running away from advancing fireballs/explosions’ scenes in my time, but the opening scene in this film might just be the silliest. And it’s followed up by another anti-favourite of mine, the nightmare within a dream.

 

Set somewhere after the “X Men” trilogy, star Hugh Jackman (AKA Everyone’s favourite human being on the damn planet) and the character of Wolverine prove far more interesting company here than in the previous “Wolverine” film (previous meaning, the released immediately prior to this one), but he can’t save this one on his own. Choosing actors who aren’t terribly fluent let alone expressive in English doesn’t help. Redhead Rila Fukashima is especially dull and inexpressive, and her character ends up pointless, useless, and unnecessary. It’s little surprise this is her feature film debut, but fellow debutant Okamoto is OK, though. Having said that the Uma Thurman-lookalike villainess (Svetlana Khodchenkova) is just as wooden as Fukashima. And by the way, at one point she even dons the Poison Ivy hair and makeup. What the hell was that all about? If you’re gonna rip-off a Batman character, why one from a Joel Schumacher Batman movie? (The universally ridiculed “Batman and Robin”)

 

I was glad that the film didn’t follow the clichéd Bond Girl rule of having one goodie and one baddie, but the flashbacks/visions involving the deceased Jean Gray (Famke Janssen) are irritating and unnecessary. As for the Asian-influenced plot, well it’s not really Asian-influenced, so much as set largely in Japan and feeling like a discarded Steven Seagal film post-“Half Past Dead” and featuring Wolverine instead of whatever former special ops turned wannabe Samurai with a distractingly Cajun-sounding accent character Seagal would likely play. It just feels like Wolverine has walked into someone else’s movie (though apparently Wolverine did have some adventures in that part of the globe in the comics).

 

And boy is it a stupid, stupid movie. I mean, the villain/s have the substance Wolverine is made largely out of and their big idea is to make a Robbie the Robot? Wouldn’t you rather another Wolverine who can at least pass for human? Mangold thinks a robot with Samurai armour looks cool. Um, no it just looks redundant. Think about it, doofus. The climax is especially lame, which is a shame because the action scene atop a train is a pretty good one, despite the efforts of Aussie cinematographer Ross Emery (“Bait”, “The Condemned”) to shake ‘n’ bake the hell out of the image. The rest of the action is hard to watch.

 

It’s no better than the previous “Wolverine” pic after all, despite Jackman’s efforts. Not your finest hour, Mr. Mangold. Crushingly disappointing stuff.

 

Rating: C