What could've been a great R-Rated standalone Wolverine feature, turns into just another Marvel episode around the third act.

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2013)

What could've been a great R-Rated standalone Wolverine feature, turns into just another Marvel episode around the third act.
For the first act it looked pretty good, I was expecting to give it 4/5, I was really interested in the philosophical themes the movie was dealing with, it wasn't just another Wolverine movie, it felt like I was up for a lonely samurai badass Wolverine, similar to "The Punisher".
Then came the second act, it felt as if Darren Aronofsky had stayed on and directed scenes in it, specially the scenes with a mentally unstable Wolverine and the excessive violence that had me wondering why there were any kids in the theater. Still, it was easy to see that James Mangold was a great replacement, he can handle both action and drama, which was the perfect mix this movie needed.
For the second act I was expecting to give it 4.5/5, I felt like I was watching a great superhero film, similar to my experience with "Watchmen", it seemed perfect right up to there. I kept on admiring the choreography of the fight scenes, something hard to find in modern action movies where all we can see is just CGI robots or aliens. The only action movie to come out this year where I truly admired its action sequences was "Fast & Furious 6".
Finally came the third act, which felt as if some studio executive came and started messing with the whole story to make it just another Marvel episode, similar to what The Avengers series does. Not only did they do that, but they scrapped so much of the story from the first two acts that everything stopped making sense. *spoiler* I'm talking about the archer who is praying at Yashido's funeral, promising him that he will take care of Mariko, his granddaughter, but then during the third act its revealed that Yashido was alive all along and was the bad guy everyone was working for, including this archer guy I'm talking about who when we first met was praying to a guy he already knew wasn't dead. Can somebody explain how that is supposed to make sense? *spoiler* Alright so by the third act which is when all these dumb plot holes started I was ready to lower my grade, but had I rated the third act apart from the other two I'd probably give it 1.5/5.
Could've this been a lot better had Darren Aronofsky directed it? Maybe, maybe not. I don't like the way he handles action (see "The Fountain") and not only that, he wouldn't had let there be any comic relief which is something "The Wolverine" typically does (specially in this movie, but in a good way). I would've liked it more than this one, thats for sure, I know he wouldn't have let studio executives control his third act after working on it for such a long time, and I would've loved seeing an R-Rated version of "The Wolverine", there were so many violent scenes in this were I would've liked seeing the off-screen outcome of the villains that the Wolverine attacks.
For recommending this movie, I'm going to have to separate the first two acts from the third. I'd recommend the first two acts to anyone who liked "Black Swan", "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol", "X-Men: First Class", "X2: X-Men United", and/or "13 Assassins". I'd recommend the third act to anyone who liked "Captain America: The First Avenger", "X-Men: The Last Stand", and/or "X-Men Origins: Wolverine".