Over the top, but fun. 6.5/10

Rating: 6/10 (26 July 2013)

After the outright terrible "X Men Origins: Wolverine", "Marvel" has come out with another "Wolverine" movie in hopes of redeeming themselves after their colossal failure. When it comes to "Marvel" character's, "Wolverine" must be my favorite of them all. I was a big fan of the "X-Men" movies (except for "The Last Stand"), despite their many plot holes and missteps, I remained a fan. The character of "Wolverine" has always to me been the most fascinating of the "X-Men" team. With his backstory being so vast, there seemed to be an unlimited amount of potential for his character. This is a character that always had a more mature feel for him, even when placed in campy stories. In "The Wolverine", Hugh Jackman returns to play the title role of the film for the sixth time. Following the events of "X-Men: The Last Stand", Logan, also known as "The Wolverine" has gone back to Canada to hide in a cave in the mountains surrounding a small, town. Once a proud member of the "X-Men" Logan has become a reclusive nobody, growing a large beard and regressing to the state of a broken man. After getting into a bar fight, Logan is approached by a mysterious woman named Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who offers him to go to Japan to visit a friend from his past. This friend is none other than Japan's wealthiest man Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi), who's life Logan saved during the second world war. Yashida is dying of an unknown disease and has invested billions of dollars to keep him alive, but his time is running out. He gives Logan a proposition, for Logan to transmit his healing powers to Yashida so that he can live a normal life and eventually die. Or as he puts it "liberating" him from his eternal pain.
The action and fight sequences are pretty impressive, but at times they feel so over the top that it is hard to take them seriously. I like the fact that this is a movie that was not scared to stray into more mature territory despite being rated PG-13. I'm not a fan of extreme violence, which granted there is none of in this movie, but it was interesting to see a fair amount of blood in this seeing as "Marvel" movies are usually on the more campy side of the spectrum. The problem with this film is that there are a fair amount of little plot holes and incoherences that took me out of the movie at times. The visual effects and cinematography satisfy, though this is definitely not one of the main focus points in the movie. The performances are nothing special, Hugh Jackman does what he did before, the brooding and dangerous character, but in the case of this movie, he did bring a more dramatic and intimate side to the character of Wolverine that we haven't seen that much before. All the performances were fine, except for Svetlana Khodchenkova's performance which was terrible. Her character felt so fake an exaggerated that it was downright painful to watch.
If you're looking for something fun and enjoyable, I would definitely recommend it, but as anything else than a fun movie, it does not really hold up. The action is over the top, despite having some well made fight sequences and the plot is lacking substance, although I am pleased to say that this movie went into mature territory and gave the character of "Wolverine" some much needed humane aspects.