Ruined by a dire third act

Rating: 6/10 (26 July 2013)

The Wolverine
**1/2 (out of 4)
126 mins/ 12
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Svetiana Khodchenkova, Brian Tee, Hal Yamanouchi, Will Yun Lee, Ken Yamamura, Famke Janssen, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart
Director: James Mangold
Plot: Wolverine is forced to examine life as an immortal when he is offered the chance to become a normal and mortal human being.
JJ's Verdict: The first two thirds of The Wolverine are terrific. It has great entertaining and well- paced action sequences with some actual meaning, but isn't afraid to slow down to develop the characters and storyline. Hugh Jackman gives a strong and more mature portrayal of Logan/Wolverine and the supporting cast shows off some of the best upcoming Asian actors and actresses. It takes a bold leap and tries not to be your typical summer blockbuster. It is a real shame then, that the final half-an hour or so, has meaningless action, silly twists and turns and really just dissolves into generic blockbuster madness.
Taking place after the events of the original X-Men trilogy, The Wolverine follows Logan living life alone, still haunted by the death of his lover Jean Grey. But when he is summoned to Japan to say goodbye to a dying old friend, he gets much more than he bargained for. The friend offers to end Logan's immortality by swapping it with his mortality. From here, although Logan rejects the offer, he begins to struggle with the thought of living forever and watching everyone he knows age and die while he continues to live as a youthful immortal. While with his old friend, he gets mixed up in his family threats and arguments as wills and legacies are discussed. And after they remove Logan's healing powers without his consent, he goes on a quest to win it back and save the woman he has fallen in love with.
The Wolverine is definitely the most mature of the X-Men films. Although they have all had a dark and sometimes bleak tone, they were never depressing. But here, Logan's obsession with Jean Grey and his struggle with no healing and immortality are a massive part of this film. I, for one, praise the film for embracing these elements of Logan's troubled life. Despite marketing the film for children, adults will probably enjoy it more.
Hugh Jackman puts in his most emotional portrayal of Logan yet and ups his character's anger and roughness but still keep the mutant we loved in the X-Men trilogy. Not only does his character develop extremely well throughout the film, but even in the action sequences Jackman is acting instead of just fighting aimlessly. While on the subject of action sequences, the earlier ones are brilliant set-pieces all on a large scale and director James Mangold takes full advantage of the Japan setting to create some truly memorable fight scenes. One scene, which is probably my contender for action sequence of the year, is one on top of a train travelling at 300mph. The camera-work is brilliant as is the choreography and effects to create a very intense scene. The rest of the cast, which is mainly full of native Japanese actors and actresses, is very good. The two female leads, Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukishima, are excellent in what are actually film debuts for both of them. While X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine had too many random mutants, in this film there are only two others in the main storyline of the film. One, Rila Fukishima's fortuneteller Yukio, is brilliantly focused on and developed as she copes with her mutation. The other mutant is Svetlana Khodchenkova's Viper, who is unfortunately the film's weakest character. She comes across as freaky and weird and frankly, you do not wish to see her on screen. Her role in the film is predictable and compared to the other characters, there is nothing to her except being able to spit acid in people's faces.
After a mature and dark character study, you would hope they wouldn't ruin it with a lagging and meaningless massive action scene in which each hero is about to die but is then miraculously saved by a friend at the last moment and each villain looks certain to die but somehow they can get straight back up again. It seems the writers ran out of ideas fro the last half an hour so just decided to try and complicate things by having silly and unneeded twists and continuous unrealistic action for about ten minutes straight.
The Wolverine is a fantastic character study of scarred man dealing with so many problems in his life. It is just a shame it runs out of steam at the end and presents us with a very poor and film- ruining final act. Make sure to stay behind for a credits scene involving two original trilogy enemies who are credited above.