Back to the basics

Rating: 7/10 (26 August 2013)

James Mangold's The Wolverine finally gets the Marvel movies back to dork fandom level 11, which is good since they aren't taking DC's path of realism (besides that terrible Green Lantern) and trying to remain more in tune to the comics themselves. And if you're going to appeal to the real comic fans, you have to bring in some real obscure story lines. I'm not saying that The Wolverine plot is as classic as bringing Carnage to Manhattan, but just by getting Logan to Japan has to pump up any fat slob who still has all his comics in those terrible plastic sleeves and no clue when the first NFL game is this year. Simply put, if you don't get jazzed up hearing the words Silver Samurai, then this film is not for you.
The basic story starts with Logan living in a cave and befriending bears, mostly from feeling guilty due to the loss of Jean Grey (stunning Famke Janseen), whom became The Phoenix in X-men 3 which was terrible, even though having the best storyline in comic book history since Batman kicked the hell out of the Predator twice (ed. note: that's up for debate). Soon the past catches up with Wolvie, as often does, and he's thrust in a mix of Japanese Yakuza and robotic monstrosities, all of which are after his magical healing power. There is so much more involved, but I've already caught hell from spoiling, so I really don't want to tell you that Logan dies and Cyclops is really Cable's father.
As a movie, it's pretty elevated on the comic level, particularly compared to the latest Marvel blasphemy Iron Man 3, which had the greatest villain Iron Man ever faced becoming little more than a hackney actor (ironically played by one the greatest actors Ben Kingsley). The Wolverine does some alteration to the main characters involved, but leaves opportunity for a correction in breaking with the canon. However these are all characters that need to be brought into Logan's life, since around 400 issues of Wolverine involve Logan turning Japanese Vapor-style.
Hugh Jackman, of course, does a fantastic job portraying our favorite Canucklehead. As much as I want to bash him due to everything he's done that doesn't involve claws, he really carries Logan's internal issues perfectly. Furthermore he looks like I imagine myself, if I didn't solely eat KFC double downs and consider urination to be exercise. As an added bonus there's a hint to Logan's claws actually being (spoiler), though I couldn't confirm that because some dork's cosplay was blocking my view for half the movie.
I'm not going to go into the plot, but it's easy to follow and a lot of fun. Some great characters pop up, including Logan's love Mariko (the beautiful Tao Okamoto), assassin Yukio (the perfectly last name Rila Fukushima), and the vicious Viper (difficultly named Svetlana Khodchenkova), the latter of which was mainly tied to the enemy organization Hydra than a Japanese organization, though I could be wrong as I bailed halfway through reading her Marvel profile. There are more characters involved in the Wolverine canon but since none of them are associated with a team that starts with an X, who cares. Plus the Silver Samurai appears, though his storyline in the movie is different than that of the comic. That one aspect slightly sucked, but who knows where the character could morph into in the upcoming twenty follow-up films of the franchise.
Overall The Wolverine was a fun film, and will satisfy some of the fandom that have been waiting for a director to somewhat read the comic before filming. It's not one hundred percent, but at least it's better than having Johnny Blaze and Nicholas Cage anywhere in the same sentence. Go see The Wolverine, and maybe they'll bring back more of the Weapon X that we all got teased on earlier.