The Wolverine (UK Rating: 12A)
Where have all the mutants gone? Well, it isn’t really known, but The Wolverine has gone to modern day Japan, summoned by an old acquaintance that is shown meeting him years ago in the film’s prologue. There in Japan, for the first time, and not the last, he loses his super powers – his big metal claws that is – that have hitherto pretty much made him invulnerable and invincible.
Hugh Jackman says he wanted to ditch all the old characters and go to a new place and tell an entirely different kind of story with a darker tone. He’s done that for sure in The Wolverine. Job done! Some will miss the X-Men movie characters, though – maybe – along with the American setting and the camper, jokier tone. However, those who like their comic-book movies in a ‘Christopher Nolan serious’ style are going to be in for a treat.
Now 44, Jackman spends most of the movie showing off his gym-fit physique: he’s got no rubber suits to hide under and hasn’t got any CGI to help him out, body wise. Nobody could blame him at all
Yes, fine, Jackman’s ultra-fit, inhabiting The Wolverine so much, so far and so deeply by now that he’s beginning actually to look wolverine-like. It’s hard now to imagine that he was a last-minute replacement for a hapless Dougray Scott, who had to bow out when filming on Mission: Impossible II over-ran in 2000but he was.
There’s no doubt that Jackman’s got a great way with the action – there’s plenty of it, by the way, and it’s thrillingly staged – and that he can also have a great way with the witty dialogue and one-liners. If only they had given him a bit more polished wit and funny one-liners to chew on, though.
With all the previous characters missing, apart from Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey, who keeps appearing in dream sequences (“my one own true love” – that kind of thing), there’s a bit of a void; a slight yawning chasm, actually. Thankfully, there is one mutant – Viper Woman – played rather magnificently by Svetlana Khodchenkova. She puts her heart, soul and especially her tongue into it. An impressive villainess, indeed, is Ms. Khodchenkova.
There is also Rila Fukushima, as Yukio, who assumes the role of The Wolverine‘s bodyguard when he gets into trouble with the not having his superpowers anymore thing. Ms. Fukushima is another undeniable force and presence in the movie; a little firecracker. Yukio’s the one who meets up with Wolverine in a bar and brings him to his old acquaintance Yashida and his destiny. The old acquaintance (Hal Yamanouchi) is now a dying industrialist who is trying to prolong an active life by fair means or foul. He’s got a rather dysfunctional family – some fair, some foul.
Then there is also Tao Okamota, who is the lovely Mariko, granddaughter of the dying industrialist, and who starts to come on to Wolverine – if only he could forget Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey – and is also a bit of a dab hand at bailing him out herself, again when he gets into trouble with the not having his superpowers anymore thing. It takes two women to save The Wolverine’s life! Come on, Hugh – seriously?
Ms. Okamota’s really rather a bit of a good thing in the movie, and then there’s also Mariko’s not-nearly-so-nice brother Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), a bit of a chip off the old block, by the look of things. Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
That’s the cast of characters and the actors; different, intriguing, and taking things in an obviously needed new direction. All on the plus side, of course, and so is the behind the scenes team. There’s marvellous production; incredibly smooth and polished direction by James Mangold (Knight and Day, Walk the Line); seamless special effects, stunning cinematography, thrilling stunts and pointless (but apparently essential) 3D.
