The Wolverine: Howling Good, Plus a 2014 X-Men Teaser

By Leslie Combemale

With his colossal muscles and his thousand-watt smile, there is a reason the magnetic and charming Hugh Jackman makes the biggest bucks. It might abut the reason he has played the same superhero more times than anyone else on film — "The Wolverine" marks his sixth time playing the titular character, and 2014's "Days of Future Past" will be No. 7.

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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 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 latest movie is far more than just a simple action flick, 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 Wolverine — also known as Logan — who is leading a hermitic existence in the wilds of Canada. He looks like a filthier Outlaw Josey Wales as he's living in caves and wandering the days aimlessly and 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 mutant businessman in an impressive sequence that starts by featuring Logan's 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. He wants to say goodbye 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 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 ("Requiem for a Dream") was originally attached to direct speaks to how far a departure the studio executives were planning for "The Wolverine."

Without 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 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 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.

The studio has amassed 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 a 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 the damsel in distress and femme fatale, and we as the audience never learn to care much about her 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 plot holes 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, 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 his part of the movies. After saying no one wanted to see that, Jackman 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 Wolverine credits for a scene worth going to see the movie in itself. It ties together the upcoming and highly anticipated movie to "The Wolverine" and features big talent and big hints about next year's star studded release.

Aussie man-meat, sharp claws, an over-the-top fight atop a bullet train, a nuclear explosion, an exciting clip from X-Men in 2014 that plays the future cast and more… "The Wolverine" is 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.