After the underwhelming critical and commercial response to The Wolverine.
Adapted from one of the character’s most popular comic book arcs — the one that sent him to Japan — The Wolverine gave Hugh Jackman his darkest material to work with (until he reteamed with Mangold for the R-rated threequel Logan). The Wolverine is not a perfect movie, but it gets a lot of things right.
Right: The Opening Flashback
Wolverine’s agelessness has been used for some fascinating scenes in the X-Men franchise. The opening flashback of The Wolverine is a prime example. Taking place in 1945, the scene depicts the atomic bombing of Nagasaki from Logan’s perspective.
Logan is stuck down a well in a Japanese P.O.W. camp when the bomb goes off, and he protects an officer from the blast, despite being one of his prisoners.
Wrong: The PG-13 Rating
The violence of The Wolverine felt restrained by its PG-13 rating at the time of its release, and then upon the release of its unrated extended cut and Mangold’s R-rated follow-up Logan, it felt really, really restrained.
Wolvie’s clashes with the Yakuza could’ve use a lot more blood. This character is tailormade for the R rating. It’s just a shame that it took Fox executives three movies to take that dive.
Right: Darker Themes
Although James Mangold wouldn’t be able to dig into the really dark themes in Wolverine’s story until he was given the freedom of an R rating in Logan, The Wolverine does explore darker themes than the average X-Men blockbuster.
Following on from X-Men: The Last Stand, in which Wolvie was forced to kill the love of his life to save the world, The Wolverine sees him plagued by hallucinations of Jean Grey.
Wrong: Viper
One of the biggest changes that The Wolverine made to its source material, a miniseries written by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, is the inclusion of Viper as the villain. In the comic, Viper doesn’t show up until the epilogue, but in the movie, she’s the primary antagonist.
The character wasn’t necessary to tell the story — as proven by the comic itself — but since this was a big Hollywood blockbuster that needed to turn a profit, the studio executives shoehorned her into the plot.
Right: Japanese Setting
After the familiarity of William Stryker’s Weapon X facility in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it was a refreshing change of pace when James Mangold moved the setting of The Wolverine to Japan. This followed one of Wolverine’s most compelling arcs from the comics.
From the fight on the roof of a moving bullet train to the chases through the streets of Tokyo, the Japanese setting of The Wolverine is consistently used to terrific effect.
Wrong: Flat Dialogue
The dialogue in Mark Bomback and Scott Frank’s script for The Wolverine serves its function in delivering exposition to the audience and moving the plot along at a brisk pace.
But it doesn’t do much to develop the characters or reflect the music of conversation. Dialogue is one of the most fun tricks in the cinematic playbook, but the dialogue in The Wolverine is entirely perfunctory.
Right: The Bullet Train Fight
There are plenty of action sequences in The Wolverine, ranging from the forgettable to the profound, and easily the best set piece in the movie is the fight atop a moving bullet train.
The CGI effects blend seamlessly with the practical stunt work, while the cinematography and editing really sell the rapid speed of the train as Logan desperately tries to traverse it.
Wrong: Fast Cuts
Like the fight scenes in The Dark Knight trilogy and a bunch of MCU movies, the fight scenes in The Wolverine are ruined by fast cuts. There’s no clarity of movement, so it’s hard to follow what’s going on.
This might be another symptom of the PG-13 rating, as the cuts are so fast that it obscures the brutality of the violence, but that’s exactly why the cutting doesn’t work.
Right: Hugh Jackman’s Performance
As always, Hugh Jackman gives a fantastic performance in the title role of The Wolverine. He’d played the character six times when his second solo movie came along, but he hadn’t lost any ion for the role.
Throughout his multi-movie arc, as Jackman’s Wolverine had to deal with more and more pain, he got more and more grizzled. That began to peak in The Wolverine.
Wrong: Generic Third Act
While the unconventional plot and novel setting of The Wolverine allow it to stand apart from other blockbusters of its ilk for the most part, it devolves into a painfully generic third act toward the end.
Like most superhero smash-‘em-ups, The Wolverine culminates in a boss battle between Logan and the Silver Samurai. However, James Mangold would eventually redeem himself with Logan’s breathtaking Shane-inspired finale.
