run time: 126 mins
rated: 14A
considered: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
director: James Mangold
starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Brian Tee, Hal Yamanouchi, Will Yun Lee, Ken Yamamura, Famke Janssen
movie summary: During the Second World War Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has found him in trouble at a Japanese military base near Nagasaki where he is being held prisoner. When the atomic bomb drops he rescues an officer of the name Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) who he protects from the blast. Yashida gives Wolverine his an ancient sword as a gift for his bravery. Fast forward to the present day where Logan has troubles dealing with Jean’s death from X-Men 3, when a mutant Yukio (Rila Fukushima) finds him living in a cave. She is there to summon him back to Japan where Yashida is dying and wants to reconnect with him to say good-bye. Little does Logan know that he walking into a trap that may cost him his immortality.
Yukio and Logan land in Japan where he shaves and gets cleaned up before being presented to Yashida who is on his death-bed. His really good-looking nurse Dr. Green (Svetlana Khodchenkova) keeps an eye on his every move while asserting herself to be the person in charge of his care. Yashida is pleased to see Logan and offers him a chance to become mortal, to ditch his cursed legacy as Wolverine if he just transfers his ability to self-heal. Logan rejects the offer and wishes Yashida a speedy recovery before packing to leave. During a nightmare in which Logan wakes up in a sweat, he is poisoned by Dr. Green who takes away his ability to self-heal. In the morning when Logan wakes up he finds out through Yashida’s granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) that he has passed away.
The funeral is a couple of days later where a gangs of hired assassins ambush the proceedings and kidnap Mariko. Wolverine takes action to fight the bad guys only to get shot up, he takes several bullets in the chest and without his healing abilities manages to claw his way through the gang to save Mariko. The pair run to the train where they think are safe until a bunch of the gangsters catch up to them and a battle ensues on the train. Wolverine and three of the guys end up on the roof of the train to fight it out while traveling 300 miles an hour. After defeating the bad guys, Wolverine returns to Mariko in the passenger car but is badly injured. They check into a hotel where Wolverine has more nightmares about killing Jean leaving Mariko to find a doctor to patch up his wounds. On the streets below Dr. Green has a run in with the leader of the gang that is trying to kill Wolverine and Mariko, since he has not got the job done she poisons him and vows to kill them herself.
Mariko and Wolverine head back to a small village where Yashida owns some property, the pair rest before being attacked by another group of ninjas. Mariko is kidnapped again and brought to a laboratory high up in the mountains, where Wolverine goes to save Mariko, kill more ninjas, and stop Dr. Green. Everyone gears up for Wolverine’s arrival by dipping arrows in prison that eventually take him down after another epic battle sequence. When he wakes up he is locked into a steel trap, Dr. Green vows to extract the adamantium from his body to power a super steel robot she has created. When the robot gets turned on it begins a battle with Wolverine that will cost him his adamantium claws. Mariko and Yukio will try their best to take down Dr. Green, who has turned into the mutant Viper, while Wolverine will make do with what he has left to take down the robot without losing his life.
my thoughts: First things first, why on earth was this movie made?? Seriously, someone please explain to me why this movie needed to be made. Second, this movie was by far one of the worst movies I watched in 2013 and I had a hard time sitting through this one again tonight so I could rewrite my review from last year. It was the 16th post I wrote for his site when I started and after reading it again this evening I realized my writing is so much better. I felt I owed to my readers to give this movie a better review. The final thing I want to say is I rated this movie four stars last year and this time around I am actually going to drop it down to three. If any of you have a problem with this, leave me a comment explaining why it deserves higher.
Hugh Jackman is a great actor, has a lot of roles to back up this statement up, but sadly this Wolverine movie is not one of them. He is still the same old charming Logan character who manages to sneak in a few swear words every now and then while making sure his hair is styled just right to make it look like he has ears. His attitude towards the past has changed since the events of X3, but he is forced to deal with them when he rather just sit around avoiding his destiny as a warrior. He was born and transformed into an immortal for a reason, he was built to do good things and help his mutant race survive in a world where everyone wants them dead.
To be honest I am a little confused on the timelines in relation to this movie, the Origins movie, and Days of Future Past. How did he end up in Japan during the bomb drop when he was fighting alongside his brother in the previous movie? How come he has his adamantium claws in the newest X-Men movie when he loses them in this film? I wish Marvel and Fox would get their act together with this Wolverine side story because despite huge box office drawings, these two movies are not good.
I can’t discuss any other actors and actresses in the movie because I have no clue who they are. I recognized Hiroyuki Sanada because he was in 47 Ronin but that is it. I feel bad for Svetlana Khodchenkova and her characters Dr. Green/Viper because she is seriously just a knock off of Poison Ivy from the Batman series. You can’t deny watching her act in a green outfit with a poisonous tongue and not think of Poison Ivy, like where was the creative team on this character? At least in other X-Men movies the enemy is always someone new and original, not a copy of someone else.
The Wolverine movie has a really bad story, some really bad actors/actresses, and even worse CGI. The train scene is one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen performed in a movie, are we really meant to believe it possible to be jump signs on a train traveling over 300 miles an hour and land safely back on the roof? If that was real life or at least as realistic as you can get in real life, everyone would have died and not made it back on the train.
Save yourself the trouble of experiencing that scene and many others in this movie by not watching it. You can find something else to do with two hours of your life, even if you love the X-Men characters to death. My only hope is that the next Wolverine spin-off movie will be better the previous two, either that or just keep him in the X-Men movies where he is a star.
my star rating: 3 out 10
imdb.com: 6.8 out 10
rottentomatoes.com: 69% out 100%
metascore: 60/100
Ten Stars or Less 
THANK YOU! I thought this movie was DREADFUL!!
You’re welcome Zoe. You know I honestly sat down and watched Origins (first time) and Wolverine (second time) because you asked me why wouldn’t I included these two movies into my X-Men week. I feel bad for Hugh Jackman because both his spin-off movies were like meh. Now at least I can safely say that I have seen all the X-Men movies! Thanks for commenting!
🙂 Glad you’ve seen them all. This one sucked but I am one of the only like twenty people in the world who is actually quite partial to Origins hahahahaha!
20? I would say maybe 18, and that includes the cast ha ha. It was a decent story, just felt ripped off with so many loose ends!!
Better than I ever expected it to be, mostly due to the fact that it paid attention to who this character of the Wolverine is, and not what it is that he does with his claws and whatnot. Good review Ryan.
Thanks Dan. I never read the comics so I don’t know if Wolverine actually spends time overseas or not, but I didn’t like this part of his back story and found it really tough to watch and get into.