The Wolverine - Review - SPOILERS

Thrown back into the Marvel world with one of the most notorious and best loved super heroes, we jump in at the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Japan and Logan's dramatic rescue of one of his captures. This is the set-up for the overall plot of the movie.  As it stands, the movie is in both 3D and 2D, but personally I would only stick with the 2D version.

Jumping into the plot, it focuses directly on trying to remove Logan's mutation and passing it on to the soon dying capturer who Logan saved decades ago. Shit hits the fan and a collection of corrupt officials, family combatants and the Yakuza jump in to try and catch Wolverine and Mariko (who is the new love interest). This collection doesn't include a lizard mutant lady with claws as sharp as her mentality and a fashion sense which only includes tight, poorly fitting clothes. Later on in the story, we have a nice big plot twist that is quite unexpected but kind of predictable when you look back on it. So the story is very muddled and is actually a little chaotic, things just happen and there is no detective work that fills the gap. It's a very fast paced and no-nonsense story.

Being that the movie is also in 3D, a lot of shots are very long. For those of you that don't know, to stop motion sickness and headaches, fast paced action sequences have to have longer shots to allow the eyes to focus on the image rather than a constant blurring of colour and sound. Some of these shots slow the pace of action considerably but can bounce back into life in seconds with acrobatics and pure adrenaline filled violence that is well choreographed. As always though, we do have a few
instances in which the action is a little silly, for instance, you would have seen a train sequence in the trailer and this is quite over the top for my liking with a lot of things happening that defy belief.

Within the action scenes, a lot of CGI is used to show the surrounding area or to add to opponents as they flew away or to create the armour that they were wearing. Some of this stood out vividly, the train scenes were filled with it as the colours they were using were to light and raising the light levels
didn't help the actors complexion alongside realism. The final robot samurai was very well done. It was big and shiny that it would reflect the surrounding area and when it fought, it was a hulking, yet agile beast. This suit was the best piece of VFX throughout the whole piece as it looked real!

Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine for many years now and it would be bad to say that he doesn't know the characters story, but at points, he can be a little overzealous with facial expressions which detract from Logan's persona but at least that god awful hairstyle is gone!. His position on the screen can also be very dominating but doesn't create any visual idea that he's a hero. You do have to understand that he has lost some of his power and he is weak, and shock looks genuine but he still has a lot of his power there. As for the rest of the actors, they were all very good and there was a few Asian actors which you would have seen in other movies, many of which they performed well in as well. The only downside for the actors was the script, trying to fill it with proverbs and stories to make it oriental was quite continuous and doesn't work very well when the movie franchise is an American classic.

All that beside, I enjoyed the movie. It took itself a little to seriously, but I like the connection to the Yakuza and the continuous action was fun and required little brain power to enjoy after a busy day. The music was good and the general framing of the images were gorgeous with a blend of city and nature throughout, merging neon with natural rustic colours is always a plus when done right. As a rating, the movie probably deserves a 7/10 and is a good watch for all ages. If you're still concerned, try using EE/Orange Wednesday codes for you and a friend or vice versa!