Nice change of setting but horrible movie

Rating: 3/10 (15 December 2013)

It's never a great indictment of a movie when it's two best scenes are bookend in the opening and then the closing credits sequence, Wolverine is prime example of this for James Mangold's Asian centred reboot of the reboot is a movie so forgettable it can only be described as a degrading piece of work on Hugh Jackman's CV.
Beyond being milked dry now the Wolverine incarnation that Jackman continues to portray (whether by want or contractual obligation I am not entirely sure) has become so stale on screen that not even a jolt of Storm's electricity could revive it. Many upon release actually heralded this movie as the venture we'd been waiting for but I would beg to differ and say that this film is barely more enjoyable than Origins, the truly awful first solo outing of the side burned hero and makes the whole film a slog to get through.
Director James Mangold has a steady hand behind the camera but one wishes that the film's original director Darren Aronofsky would of stuck out the journey because the film feels stunningly flat with only the aforementioned opening and end credits scene really feeling energetic. Fights are played out in generic style, one liner's sign posted from a mile off and countless unnecessary sub plots seemingly placed into the film for no good reason with all this leading to one of the year's lamest and overlong finales that would of undone any good works previous to it anyway.
It's nice to see a superhero movie not set in a big American city and Hugh Jackman is never bad but one wishes he would look for more challenging roles such as he did with Les Miserables and the fantastic Prisoners. With Days of Future Past out next year it will be interesting to see how big of a role Wolverine plays in proceedings but after this effort I think it best he plays minimal roles and perhaps retires for good into the wilderness living out his days with Grizzly bears for I think we have seen just about enough of him by now.
1 and a half crispy fried Hugh Jackman's out of 5
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