A fish-out-of-water, ninja, superhero mutant movie!

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2013)

A fish-out-of-water, ninja, superhero mutant movie?! Yes!
Throw in a little Shakespearean family intrigue and a brooding tortured lead character (all via Akira Kurosawa) and you have one of the most interesting films of this woeful summer.
The Wolverine is a breath of superhero fresh air. A new setting, a change in tone, and a personal journey for the Hamlet of the mutant world gives the superhero genre a much needed shot in the arm. The Wolverine makes The Man of Whining Steel look so so dated.
Some very nice character work and subtlety, particularly in the first half of The Wolverine, is undermined by the 47 clunky needless dream sequences that "tell" rather than "show." Seriously, it's as if a third-grader was hired to polish the work of A-list screenwriters. The script changes were done in crayon, with doodles drawn in the margins.
Superhero fans will no doubt be disappointed with all the attention placed on character here, but these slow insightful moments are what make the film interesting. God knows we didn't need another high adrenaline summer film chock full of pointless action (Star Trek Into Dumbness, Pacific Dim-witted).
That's not suggesting that the body count is low. It's not. The Wolverine slices and dices his way through all of Japan with his ginsu-like claws. The set pieces, except for two, are not grand or spectacular though. Not something I really minded since the genre mashup and story kept things interesting – for me at least.
Once again: a fish-out-of-water, ninja, superhero mutant movie. If that's not a movie crying "fresh" I don't know what could be. Sharknado, perhaps?
Oh, then there is the ethereal, graceful beauty of female lead Tao Okamoto. You just have to see her in this. Photos from the web cannot do her justice. A model appearing in her first film, she is an absolute natural. The exact opposite of Cindy Crawford. Does anyone remember Fair Game? (Hot movie poster, bad movie.) The development of the relationship between Tao's character and The Wolverine in the first 60 minutes is incredibly well-handled and Tao shows such a strength, confidence, and vulnerability. It makes those interrupting 89 dream sequences seem that much more sinful and intrusive. (We get it already! The Wolverine is a tortured soul. Enough.)
All the loose ends are pulled together neatly in a third act that is pretty generic superhero fare. A letdown really.
The sum of its parts is greater than the whole, and given the pathetic summer at the cinema this has been, The Wolverine gets seven ninja stars out of 10.
-- There's a post-credit scene here, so stay to the end. I, unfortunately, did not get the memo until it was too late.