Extremely unrealistic and cliché

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2013)

When the Wolverine was announced to take place in Japan, there was a lot of potential to the storyline, Japan is a gem in East with beautiful scenery, a strong culture and unique history. If going to Japan for the protagonist was to seek redemption, find purpose, and to reinvent himself was the main focus of the movie, then maybe the movie would of been a lot better. Instead the direction of the movie is based on one dimensional characters, unrealistic story line and cliché fight scenes.
There is no character development for any of the characters therefore you don't give a sh!T about them. For example !SPOILERS! during one scene where Yashida explains to Logan that his granddaughter "Mariko" is his most valuable treasure and must be protected. Yet it never explains why or goes in depth to the connection between them. It doesn't explain why he neglects his son "Shingen" who seem to be so much more useful than the granddaughter. Also the romance between Logan and Mariko is a joke, there was no need for it. Its ridiculous that she would go against her grandfather and her childhood lover "Sanada" for a person she met in matter of days. Sanada's character is even more ridiculous, from being a black ninja loyal to Yashida, he suddenly changes his mind near the end of the movie for absolutely no reason and is killed by the giant mech samurai.
Logan does not go through any spiritual transformation or encounter anything from the culture that would help him reinvent himself other than the fact he got laid. The director did not put any emphasis on the Japanese culture. The way of the samurai was not put in to focus at all.
Although it is an Xmen movie, there is literately 2 mutants in the entire film. You have Logan and the viper, this could of been a film about the Yakuza or ninjas and you wouldn't even notice the difference.
The movie is very inconsistent in a lot of aspects, for example the adamantium claws wolverine has can rip through metal walls like cutting butter yet he couldn't cut through stainless steel samurai swords? Also in the marvel universe adamantium is extremely rare, in Xmen origins it established that adamantium came from space, so where on earth did Yashida find that much adamantium to build a giant mech? But the film never offers any sort of clarification or explanation to this.
The movie has many similarities to the "Last Samurai", they were both westerners traveling to Japan, both have lost purpose in life, and both have been haunted by their past. Yet the elements presented in the Last Samurai that made it a good movie was non existent in the Wolverine. Towards the end of the Wolverine you wish he had just said yes to Yashida's offer and died therefore sparing you from this
Overall the movie isn't the worst Xmen film, but X-men first class has set the bar quite high and this definitely does not live up to expectations.