Hugh Jackman's Mutton Chops Still Fit

Rating: 9/10 (9 August 2013)

Hugh Jackman returns for the sixth time as everyone's favorite bad boy mutant, Wolverine, in what is the best Wolverine-centric movie since 2003's X-2: X-Men United.
In The Wolverine, our titular hero journeys to Japan to say goodbye to Yashida, a man he saved from the H bomb in Nagasaki, who is now a dying business tycoon. Yashida offers the immortal Wolverine a tempting proposition -- he will thank Wolverine for saving him by taking away Wolverine's powers, enabling Wolverine to go off and be mortal. Of course, nothing goes as planned and everyone around Wolverine, including Yashida himself, seem to have ulterior motives.
What is so fun about this movie is that it's a serious, character centric superhero movie. This movie literally has only two other mutants in it other than Wolverine himself. It's quite simply a stripped down action movie where the hero just happens to have special powers and centuries of baggage that he must overcome in order to once more find his place in the world. Of course, by the movie starring Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, even though it's a dramatic look at what makes Wolverine who he is, Jackman still infuses the character with enough gruff charisma to where his one-liners are all actually funny and you're having fun while also being completely captivated by the serious tone of the story.
This is honestly unlike any other superhero film ever done before. There aren't many pure black-and-white characters in this story, almost every character languishes in the moral grey area, including Wolverine himself at times. It's a movie that actually shows one of the toughest superheroes in all his glory. While it's a shame that the climax of the film lacks any real definitive punch that tops all of the action and adventure that comes before it, The Wolverine is still a close to perfect cinematic adaptation that will please almost any fanboy.
I give The Wolverine a 9 out of 10!