Walking a fine line

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2009)

The Wolverine movie tries to balance itself at being a serious telling of the character's origin story and a fun summer block buster at the same time. While the film definitely succeeds on both fronts it doesn't quite match the seriousness and intent of the first three movies.
The exploration in to Wolverine and Sabertooth's relationship is one of the more rewarding experiences out of the film from a story point of view as well as seeing the origins of the character's name and the ultimate decision to have his skeleton covered by nigh-indestructible metal. All of the back-story works well but the scene where Logan finally loses his memory felt like a bit of an anti-climax especially after the shocking plot-twist concerning Kayla.
The action scenes are once again brilliant and the element of comedy is very welcome in the film. I also have to admit to liking all the new mutant characters, no matter how briefly they appear. Wade Wilson was fun and Deadpool provides the coolest part of the film's latter half (and making me wish that Baraka from the second Mortal Kombat film would have looked more like him). But while the more entertaining parts of the film are handled even-handedly with the story-drive ones they unfortunately do undermine the film just a tad bit.
Typical fan complaints aside, Wolverine is a good action film and a well-handled retelling of the character's origin story but not a film that can match the message of the first three X-Men films.