by Erin Hatch, Editor
When is a super hero movie not a super hero movie? Does the inclusion of characters with strange and supernatural powers automatically consign a film to the increasingly dominant sub-genre, mixing the most potent aspects of the science fiction and action categories, or is there wiggle room for a film to defy the tropes of the comic book super hero film as popularized by Marvel and DC in recent years?
The Wolverine evokes those questions despite the comic book origins of its characters and their super human abilities, because at its core it is an action film with a theme that questions the nature of mortality and immortality. One that just happens to feature a guy with an adamantium skeleton and the ability to heal from any wound… except when he doesn’t have that ability, which is most of the film. It is also telling that the most spectacular action sequences center around characters whose super-human abilities derive not from random genetic mutation or freak scientific accidents, but from old fashioned hard work over decades of training. Seriously, this movie has ninjas, and ninjas are awesome. Or is the plural of ninja also ninja? I’m getting distracted from the point.
Once upon a time in Nagasaki, a frightened Japanese officer named Yashida freed prisoners of war in the moments before the nuclear annihilation of the city by the evil Americans. Not ready to commit honorable suicide with his superiors, Yashida ran from the blast, only to be saved by one of the prisoners he had just freed, who somehow was able to shield the man and yet instantly recover from the horrible burns inflicted by the destructive weapon. I’m not going to spoil who it was, but the movie was named after him.
Skip forward 68 years and Logan (played by Hugh Jackman of X-Men, X2, Les Miserables, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine fame) is living in a cave in the Canadian wilderness, existentially horrified that he was partially responsible for X-Men: The Last Stand. After his awesome neighbor Grizzly Bear is murdered by evil American hunters, Logan goes to town for some old-fashioned mountain man vengeance, which is stopped by the arrival of clairvoyant swords-woman Yukio, who has been sent to return Logan to Japan so that a dying Yashida can repay him for saving his life so long ago. This summary is taking forever, so let’s just say Yashida dies, his granddaughter is targeted for kidnapping by the Yakuza, Wolverine has to protect her, there are also ninjas (or ninja) involved, Logan loses his powers and has to deal with the fact that he can be hurt, there is a giant adamantium samurai who is vaguely silver in his appearance, and a bunch of people get stabbed and/or shot with claws and/or knives and/or swords and/or arrows and/or guns, or some combination of the aforementioned weapons.
The highlights of the film are an action sequence that plays out on top of a bullet train and features an unsurprising lack of fighting because the combatants are busy hanging onto the train for dear life while traveling at 200 miles per hour, and Japanese Hawkeye (played by Korean-American actor Will Yun Lee of the Total Recall remake, a bunch of TV shows, and previous acclaimed Marvel movie Elektra) who is an order of magnitude cooler than Hawkeye from Marvel’s 2012 mega hit The Avengers. I would watch the movie again for those two things alone.
It is also notable that the thing that stands out the most as not belonging in this film is the overtly inhuman superpowers of Viper, the only other mutant to appear aside from Logan and Yukio. With the other two powered characters retaining mostly human appearances through the story, a serpent-tongued, venom-spitting, snake skinned woman feels distinctly out of place: A feature from a typical overt super hero film, not the less unrealistic tone that The Wolverine adopts most of the time.
I’m an X-Men fan, but I don’t especially like Wolverine. Aside from my patriotic duty to respect him for his Canadian origins, I feel like most of the adoration of his character goes way overboard and inflates his stature to the point that the authors behind his stories forget his true strength- his ability to be part of a team despite his natural instincts- to the point that he overshadows and sometimes entirely eclipses the characters around him (as in Wolverine and the X-Men, which would have been an awesome X-men TV show if not for its constant obsession with how great and special Wolverine is over the people around him.) I actually have a point behind this paragraph, I’m not just saying it to get these long-pent-up feelings off my chest in a public forum. That point is: I rarely like stories that focus solely on Logan/Wolverine as a character (I’m looking at you, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and I had a lot of fun watching The Wolverine. Aside from the more serious tone and existential questions, I thought the action sequences were good and the story kept me entertained throughout. The comic book influences were subtle, and the cameos few but meaningful, never an interruption to the plot. Whether you are a fan of the immortal Marvel character or not, The Wolverine is worth your time and money as an action movie alone.
Rating: 
ComicsOnline gives The Wolverine five out of five bullet train jumps gone wrong.
Check out these brand new videos from SDCC 2013, featuring Hugh Jackman discussing The Wolverine, and the ENTIRE cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past!
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