Great until the third act

Rating: Null/10 (29 July 2013)

The 2013 summer movie season has been filled with films that have relied heavily on action and relied very little on an interesting or original story. This should come as no surprise as the studio blockbuster mentality the past few years has been that movies should be loud, brainless, and should depend on action over character. Going into The Wolverine, I was expecting the film to follow this same model. To my surprise, for the first two thirds of its running time, The Wolverine is the absolute best film of the summer, a big-budget spectacle that actually pays attention to characters and tells an interesting, compelling, and intense story. Director James Mangold sets a very distinct tone from the other X-Men movies right off the bat with great opening sequences that set aside any notions that will just be another dumb action picture. Mangold takes the material seriously, allowing for a few fantastic jokes when necessary, but otherwise maintaining a strong sense of solemn atmosphere. He also knows how to direct action without resorting to choppy editing or fast motion and slow motion nonsense. Mangold perfectly mixes thematic elements involving Wolverine's depressed state in a mature and thoughtful manner with the necessary fight set-pieces. Additionally, Hugh Jackman gives his best performance yet as Wolverine. This is certainly the most dramatic of any of the installments of the X-Men series and Jackman cranks up the intensity, rage, and sadness of his character to degrees not seen before. Jackman's performance was the main reason I was convinced by the 90-minute mark this was the best X-Men production yet. But then, just as the film was reaching absolute greatness, came the last 30 minutes.
While the last act of The Wolverine by no means ruins the film entirely, it does make me question what went on behind the scenes. The third act shifts the flick into dumb summer movie mode and the serious, intense tone established so well by Mangold is thrown out the window for a series of plot twists and action sequences that become increasingly more ridiculous. To make matters worse, one of the plot "twists" is eerily similar to one that was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (it wasn't a good idea there either). The last 20 minutes really do feel like somebody made the decision that there needed to be scenes that resemble Iron Man or Transformers because, well, those made a lot of money. While the action that preceded this point is rather nicely woven into the overall plot, the action in the finale is simply there for the sake of action. Fights drag on and on, characters fall down only to get up again repeatedly, and the pace is slowed down as a result. The film eventually recovers enough to have a satisfying final scene, but by then The Wolverine as an overall motion picture feels slightly cheapened, compromised, and less satisfying.
Even with the very disappointing third act, it's hard to deny that there are very powerful scenes in The Wolverine. Mangold's direction and Jackman's performance is absolutely fantastic. It seems unlikely that there will be another solo Wolverine adventure based on the U.S. box office performance of this one, though with what Mangold and Jackman accomplished The Wolverine, there has finally been a mostly solid Wolverine outing that does the character and the audience justice. This is, by far, Mangold's best effort yet and the best best of the summer. 7/10