Better than Origins, but still not good.

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2013)

There's a fight on top of a train and it's pretty awesome. That said, most of everything else just doesn't add up to an exciting, riveting movie. It's better than Origins.
For the record, my X-men knowledge is not spectacular. I have the gist, I own and have read a couple of the comics, I've seen all the movies and I've watched the animated series, most of them, except for the "Wolverine and the X-men" cartoon. I went into this movie with just a general idea of what it was supposed to be about. Wolverine in Japan.
I assumed that any story about Wolverine in Japan featuring a woman with daddy/grandaddy issues would be about Yuriko.
Ah... but they already did Yuriko in X2, right?
This movie is not about Yuriko.
I repeat, this movie is not about Yuriko.
Even when you start to think about Yuriko, because that's inevitable, really, keep in mind that it's not about Yuriko. The girl does not end up with claws. Nor does she end up part cyborg. Her name is MAriko, not YUriko. Different people.
Now focusing on what the movie actually is about...
Well, honestly, it's not about anything really. What you see in the trailer is what you get mostly. There are ninjas, a giant samurai robot, a Japanese girl who's very Japanese, another Japanese girl who's the love interest, a lot of sword-fighting, some more ninjas, a man with a crossbow...
There are two mutants aside from Wolverine, both have very lame powers. nothing to get excited about. Wolverine spends a lot of time getting shot, and there's a lot of sword-fighting. A whole lot of sword- fighting. And ninjas with arrows... Lots and lots of ninjas... And warning to the parents, it's not very kid friendly.
If you're a fan of X-men, because you like that magical thrill of seeing people do awesome unbelievable stuff like bend metal with their minds, fly, freeze time, control the weather, shoot lasers from their eyes/arms, teleport in a puff of blue smoke, etc, then this movie isn't for you.
If you're a die-hard Wolverine fan though, and you don't care about the plot as long as Hugh Jackman is on the screen growling, then yay this!
And there's a fight in/on a train that almost makes the whole thing worthwhile. Post credits clip doesn't reveal anything you didn't already know.