The Wolverine
Directed by James Mangold
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
The X-Men comic book franchise has a long and venerable tradition of delivering innovative entertainment through the seamless marriage of dialogue and art, while simultaneously addressing important social issues that run the gamut from racism to homophobia.
In 2000, 20th Century Fox hired Bryan Singer to direct the first live-action X-Men film, aptly named X-Men, which opened to critical and commercial success.
So did its sequel, X2: X-Men United, in 2003. After a disappointing third film—2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand—which sacrificed a compelling narrative for visual bombast, the studio produced its first X-Men standalone picture, 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in an attempt to illustrate the colourful and fascinating history of the titular character.
The keyword is attempt here, folks.
Then, from the ashes of that misbegotten pastiche of random secondary X-Men characters and cliche-ridden plot twists finally comes a satisfying look at Wolverine’s life apart from the X-Men.
In this year’s X-Men, The Wolverine, the audience sees Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as a hermit, living in physical seclusion from his former teammates. It’s the emotional part he’s having trouble with, which comes in the form of the ghost of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) haunting his dreams.
After he’s contacted by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), the emissary of a dying Japanese industrialist—whose life he saved during the Nagasaki bombings, illustrated wonderfully in the film’s opening sequence—he’s whisked away to Japan based on an offer by the industrialist, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), to remove his healing factor and end his immortality.
The idea that Wolverine could become mortal is a fascinating one. The concept of an eternal life has long been a cultural Holy Grail that civilizations throughout history have striven for, only to be thwarted time and again by the pesky limitations of the human body.
The desire is shared by Yashida, who wants to stave off death by transferring Wolverine’s healing factor into his own body. It’s a great idea for an existential journey on film, but what could have been a transcendent character piece instead settles for the safe depiction of Wolverine’s efforts to save Yashida’s daughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), from corrupt defense officials and Yakuza thugs.
That’s not to say it’s not a massive improvement over X-Men Origins. Where Origins sacrificed originality for mutant trivia, The Wolverine embraces its singularity by only hinting at the other films’ narratives, and not being afraid to show the vulnerable, embattled side of Wolverine as he questions what defines him, apart from his prehensile claws and ability to heal.
While it degenerates into your typical action movie after the first act, which is admittedly entertaining unto itself, it finally explores the inner conflict of a character defined by outer conflict, and sufficiently questions what eternal life means to someone—and what one would do for it.
