Pretty much everything lacking in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine is present in this second attempt at a solo film for the character: It features other mutants but doesn’t lose focus of the main character, it has a plot that turns in more than one direction, and is actually interested in exploring a new faucet of the character. And yet, despite all this, it’s not even that much better, it’s just bad for different reasons. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is pretty bad, but it’s got so much over the top silliness that it can be enjoyed as a tongue-in-cheek guilty pleasure. This film, however, takes itself seriously and you really need to watch it on it’s own terms to get the most out of it. This is why the beginning of the film is so good: In 1945 Wolverine helps a Japanese soldier survive the atomic strike on Nagasaki and, in 2013, is invited to his home in Japan to say goodbye to him on his deathbed. While there, he sees that the man’s granddaughter is getting slapped around by her father, that she attempts suicide, and meets a mutant who can see how people will die in the future. Any one of these things would be a good hook for a film, but all of them at once are excellent. It’s very easy to get invested in it at the start. The cracks start to show in the middle of the film where the plot and exploration of Wolverine as a character all begin to stagnate. There’s a prolonged sequence of Wolverine laying low with the granddaughter in modern Nagasaki which, apart from one flashback to 1945, doesn’t get the amount of thematic resonance or character exploration done that it could have for all the time they spend there. That wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t linger on these two for so long; I think I could easily overlook this if it took the time to further develop one of the many other hooks established, but it doesn’t. For context: The old man left his wealth and company to his granddaughter, and so her father has hired the yakuza to whack her. Meanwhile the old man isn’t even dead. He faked his death to lure Wolverine into a trap so he can steal his healing abilities and gain immortality. This is where the plot, which has been mostly grounded (aside from the mention of ninjas) goes off the rails. Wolverine ends up in a battle to the death against a giant adamantium Samurai robot piloted by a crippled and dying old man. With some help, Wolverine wins and all is well. What perpetuates it into silly territory is that, even in all this writing, I haven’t mentioned many of the other characters like the Viper lady, who temporarily turns off Wolverine’s healing, or the leader of the Ninjas, who has a turn of heart at the end of the film and decides to not be a baddie anymore. There’s so many moving pieces and characters, which the middle of the film doesn’t develop, that the end is very abrupt. We get some very good introductions to all of these things at the start, minimal exploration in the middle, and sudden climax that we’re supposed to click with at the end. The result is a film that feels very long, but in which it feels like not much is actually done. It is a bit of a shame because there are parts of this movie that do work very well. Director James Mangold, who would later go on to direct Logan (2017), is clearly a huge fan of the character and wants to do something new with him. Japan is a great setting and way to get Wolverine out of his comfort zone, and a character who can predict his death being on the team adds a lot of tension. With Wolverine being so vulnerable in this film there are actually stakes, but this comes at the cost of the whole plot about losing his healing needing to happen just so that there can be stakes, which is a little weird to sit with. In interviews at the time, Hugh Jackman said he was happier with this film than X-Men: Origins because they managed to get more character exploration done, and I do agree that they did. The problem is that, as I have said before, it’s not always interesting when the pacing drops off a cliff in the middle. It’s also a shame because there are some brilliant set piece moments that are a joy to watch: Fighting atop a bullet train against Yakuza and dodging the many signs and overhanding structures was probably the standout. But then there’s moments like the fight against the Ninjas, which is very short but interesting; The Ninjas realise pretty quick they aren’t gonna win with swords, so shoot him with arrows and hold him in place with ropes. I really enjoy when media with neigh invincible characters find clever ways of having them be defeated, and this was one of them. My personal favourite fight was when Wolverine gets his powers back and he has a simple, but effective, duel against a guy with a samurai sword. But despite a bag of good story hooks and satisfying action scenes, none of it culminates into a more cohesive whole and it just feels messier the longer it runs on. Unfortunately I don’t rate The Wolverine very highly. It’s not a complete travesty, it’s not bottom of the barrel, it’s just quite forgettable.