The Wolverine

Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman is, as always, amazing. I have already said it in my reviews of previous X-Men movies and I say it again. He was born for this role. This movie definitely looked great on paper and the result is not bad either. I don’t have any major complaints concerning The Wolverine. Still, I can't help feeling (and, reading others’ reviews, I'm probably not the only one) that this installment of the X-Men saga was essentially pointless. (10/01/2014)

A slow and very personal drama that loses it toward the end when it turns into the comic far too heavy-handedly. A shame that Aronofsky didn’t make it. Not that Mangold didn’t do a good job, but his signature isn’t as pronounced, tending too much toward the mainstream. But maybe the producers wanted just that. The shift to Japan, where Wolverine is a little out of his depth (but doesn’t try to adapt), is like manna for the viewer. Although we aren’t bombarded with the exotic (was it a problem to film the chase at night with the neons switched on?), but it adds to the scope of the X-Men universe. Jackman is awesome and after the thirteen years he’s been playing his role, it’s become second nature, and worked out for this movie and looks like a huge, invincible gorilla in the fight with Sanada. All the more I was disappointed with the very cursory encounter with the seven hundred ninja’s which I almost didn’t notice. The finale, if a little over the top, had its moments and overall I took utterly positive feelings away with me. Hype can be harmful. (28/07/2013)

Wolverine doesn't fit well in Japan, and it was beautifully evident throughout the whole 130 minutes. It started with a fantastic retreat in Nagasaki, continued with a solid romance in the style of The Last Samurai, and ended with dull action scenes and a "surprising" outcome reminiscent of B-movies from the 1990s demons. Logan is a likable character with a suitably dark past, but so far no one has been able to exploit it properly. Either it's an action flick or an attempt at a mysterious adult blockbuster that is awkward to the point of being unappealing, and appropriately disparate. (23/11/2013)

It's a shame, but The Wolverine didn't do it for me. Not that this movie was outright bad, but I enjoyed it a little less than the last Origins and a lot less than the first two installments of the saga. Hugh Jackman tries really hard, he loves Logan and knows what fans want to see and hear. But unfortunately, the futile script makes it difficult for him. The plot was inspired by the excellent comic book by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, but it basically took only the names of the characters, Japan and a few situations. It did not use the powerful yet simple story. Instead, the film is at times overwrought and at times too simple, the intimate moments between Wolverine and Mariko are probably the best, and of the action scenes I liked the one on the express train the best. The rest was pretty much short and stout in terms of imagination or Wolverine's rampage (the school ambush scene from X-Men 2, where Wolverine is at his most Wolverine-like, still leads in this regard). Apart from the opening in Nagasaki, this time there were no moments to remember, which the previous film was in fact full of. And where did the fun go? Who knows... A few good lines (about three) and nothing else. The ending was ridiculous, and clearly the best moment of the whole film came in the middle of the credits. Actually, I think Wolverine was filmed just for that scene and so Marco Beltrami could compose another good soundtrack. (25/07/2013)

A completely cut-and-dry flop – that’s how I’d describe this Wolverine. The authors might have forced it a little and gave us a solid atomic explosion right in the first scene, but it’s all downhill from there, which can’t even be stopped by the well-oiled machine called Svetlana Khodchenkova. In any case, it’s hard to say what exactly the problem is here. I think it’s the story itself. For a few years now, I’ve thought that X-Men lacked any sort of concept. The authors are popping out one movie after another and it’s a hard job to try to find a connection between them. For example, I think it’s pretty brainless to shoot two movies called Wolverine over the span of just 4 years. You can be a little forceful at the beginning, but you can’t blackmail us with artificial movies. On the other hand, Marvel never had a problem with recycling and so I’ve got a feeling that there’s a whole array of useless superheroes waiting for us in the future, all under the wings of talented directors. For example, it’s a shame that this movie was directed by Mangold, as I’d much rather see him do other movies. And when I see his upcoming movie – Untitled Wolverine Sequel – it makes me sick to my stomach. That’d be a third Wolverine movie over the span of ten years. However, the X-Men saga still remains to be the moneymaker of the decade, if not the century. I’m surprised it’s still doing well. (04/07/2014)