The Wolverine (2013) is the third Marvel Comics film to take us back to the origins of the X-Men. Following on from 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men First Class in 2011, the new film gets deeper under the regenerative skin of Logan with a series of crazy fight scenes in Japan to keep the mutant busy.
The Wolverine had its release on the 24th July 2013, which left a fair wait for it to hit the big screen following the post of the first teaser trailer below. While the cinematography turned out to be much less stylistic than the graphic novel delivery below, the movie still went on to have a subtly different style of development to the rest of the films in the X-Men film series thanks to the Japanese influence. The film turned out to be much less like Sucker Punch than first appeared to be the case, but there were still a few vague traces of some of the special effects led fight sequences.
Details of the storyline at the time of the release of the teaser trailer were relatively thin on the ground, except for the fact that it starts out with the Wolverine taking a trip to Japan to face the demons of his past. It’s based on the comic book series of the same name, first published in 1982 and written by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.
However, more information was to follow and it was announced that Logan would face up against characters from the comic book series, including Yakuza big boss Shingen Yashida, as well as Viper and The Silver Samurai. A new love interest was also announced in Yshida’s daughter Mariko.
The X-Man doesn’t half know how to get himself into bother and in the new movie he continues to do just that as his regenerating powers are stripped of him and he’s left to experience vulnerability for the first time in his life. If it wasn’t for his adamantium skeleton and claws as additional party tricks, he ight have been snookered.
Hugh Jackman returned once again as Wolverine and he clearly put a lot of effort into the physicality of the role, because he looks like he’s been re-chiseled by Rodin. The rest of the cast includes Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai) as Shingen, Japanese Ralph Lauren model Tao Okamoto as Mariko, Will Yun Lee (Die Another Day) as the dying head of the Yashida family and Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)) as the dangerously toxic mutant, Viper.
The Wolverine is directed by James Mangold (genius name) who also directed Cop Land and Walk the Line, so the X-Men film had a director that was well known for his hard hitting films. However, the fact that he was also in charge of the chair on cheese-fest that was Knight and Day meant that it turned out to be a mixed bag. Read out The Wolvering DVD review to find out what we thought of the film.
