'The Wolverine:' A Howling Good Time

With his colossal muscle "guns" and his thousand-watt smile, there is

a reason the magnetic and charming Mr. Jackman makes the biggest

bucks. It might abut the reason he has played the same superhero more

times than anyone else on film (six with The Wolverine, seven with

2014's Days of Future Past).

He is known as the nicest man in Hollywood, extremely versatile and so

well cut his muscles have muscles, so much so we the audience take his

exceptional 44 year-old body for granted.



Not all his wolfish outings have been successful (X-men Origins:

Wolverine sent fanboys exiting the theaters in droves) …but The

Wolverine, a standalone adventure starring the wingy-banged grumpy

immortal X-man, does a great deal to explain the continued faith

Hollywood has in Jackman as a leading man and action star.



The movie, however, is far more than just a simple action-er and in

its choice to add depth and complexity to the story and character, it

follows the great trajectory so well established by recent movies like

The Avengers and Iron Man 3.



The story follows a reclusive Wolfie (aka Logan) who is leading a

hermitic existence in the wilds of Canada, looking like a filthier

Outlaw Josey Wales, living in caves and wandering the days aimlessly

after restlessly struggling through night after night of nightmares

featuring his past lady love, whom he was forced to kill in X-Men: The

Last Stand. She serves as tortuous delusion, popping up at the worst

times to remind him how miserable he is, and how little use he has for

his near immortality. He has lost his family, and everyone he loves

dies. He is lost.



Enter a wealthy Japanese businessman, whom he outed himself as mutant

saving him at Nagasaki, in an impressive sequence that starts by

featuring Logan's swoon-enducing male physicality and ends with the

unenviable task of reproducing moments from one of WWII's worst

disasters. Mr. Yashida is now dying, we are told by Yukio, a mutant

emissary in thigh-high red striped socks, Yukio. He wants to say good

bye, and offer a gift of thanks.



Out of that annoying sense of honor and duty he can't seem to shake,

Logan goes to Japan to see his old friend. Once there, he is offered

the chance to feel physical pain, deterioration and mortality like the

rest of humanity. It is in this newfound vulnerability that Logan

finds himself and we as the audience connect more with him than ever

before.



Mortality, love, vengeance and subjective morality are all themes that

trundle this tale along, and they are none too light a set of

subjects. There is the idea of Logan as ronin, or a samurai without a

master, which thematically has been used in a variety of genres, and

here, along with other clear influences, it is what integrates the

movie's desperate influences together. These influences separate The

Wolverine from the superhero movies of the past.



Logan's "man without a name" archetype brings to mind westerns like

The Outlaw Josey Wales. The hyper-colorized scenes in Tokyo seem

influenced by films like Happy Together and In the Mood for Love by

Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai.



There is also an element of sparse expansiveness in the Japanese

seaside scenes reminiscent of classic director Yahujiro Ozu's work.

That freaky do-it-my-way auteur Darren Aronofsky (of Requiem for a

Dream and Black Swan) was originally attached to direct speaks to how

far a departure they were planning for The Wolverine...



Giving credit where it's due, without Hugh Jackman's versatility, this

kind of complicated blending of genres into a Marvel comic story would

not have worked. Jackman has the ability to seem intense and off the

cuff at the same time. Coming from another actor, some of the retorts

he tosses out would seem somewhere between cliched and ridiculous.



They seem perfectly at home coming from The Wolverine as a character,

and it shows just how well Jackman can embody the role, reminding us

how much we care about this troubled misanthrope with a heart of

gold. Immortality breeds existential despair, as well as, apparently,

perfect deadpan delivery of comic-book-ready pith and sass.



It was great to hear that Hugh Jackman found a way into the

character's bad attitude during the film shoots by starting every

morning with an ice cold shower. No wonder he's grumpy.



They have emassed a collection of pedigreed actors from all over the

world to play supporting roles, with greater and less successful

results. Rila Fukushima as Yukio, is immediately magnetic as friend

and battle-ready companion (or as she calls it, bodyguard) to the

reticent Logan.



She is a mutant with an unpleasant ability she wishes she could give

back, unlike her hard won and colossal fighting skills. Her costuming

and character are both unique and badass enough to inspire Halloween

homages, to become this year's "Hitgirl." The relationship between

her and Logan shows his goodness to the audience even before he

finally sees it for himself.



The character of Mariko as Logan's love interest, is less successful.

Tao Okamoto does what she can with the role, but she is meant to be

enigmatic, a mix of damsel in distress and femme fatale, and we as

the audience never learn to care much about her in specifics, beyond

the fact that she makes Logan feel again.



It is unfortunate that the climactic last quarter of the movie gets so

buried in CGI and desperate measures to fill holes in the plot or

explain character motivations that it almost loses us all to bleed to

death in its own bluster. It is assumed that Hollywood required

neater bows than the filmmakers would have wanted to tie, and as a

result, the bluster and cacophony ensued. The rest of the film is

inventive and unusual enough to compensate for the disastrous sections

towards the end.



At the X-Men: Days of Future Past panel at San Diego Comic-Con,

someone facetiously asked about Wolverine singing as part of the

movies. After saying no one wanted to see that, he burst into a song,

"I'm gonna SLICE 'em, i'm gonna DICE 'em…", bringing laughter and

cheers from the assembled masses. And speaking of Days of Future

Past, stay past the credits, for a scene worth going to see the movie.

It ties together the upcoming and highly anticipated movie to The

Wolverine, and features big talent and big hints about the next year's

star studded release.



Aussie man-meat, sharp claws, an over-the-top balletic fight atop a

bullet train, a nuclear explosion, an exciting clip from X-Men in 2014

that "plays the future cast," and more…Wolverine. See it. It's a

howling good time.



Leslie Combemale, "Cinema Siren", is a movie lover and aficionado in

Northern Virginia. Alongside Michael Barry, she owns ArtInsights

Animation and Film Art Gallery in Reston Town Center. She has a

background in film and art history. She often is invited to present at

conventions such as the San Diego Comic Con. In 2013 she will

moderate "Legendary Animators of Classic 60s Cartoons" at SDCC. She

previously moderated "The Art of the Hollywood Movie Poster" and is a

perennial panelist on the Harry Potter Fandom panel. Visit her art

gallery online at www.artinsights.com, and see more of her reviews and

interviews on www.artinsightsmagazine.com.

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