(Delayed) Modern Movie Monday: The Wolverine (2013)

(Delayed) Modern Movie Monday: The Wolverine (2013)

Plot Summary

Logan (Hugh Jackman) has become a hermit, living in the woods alone and haunted by nightmares of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). One day, Yukio, (Rila Fukushima) who is skilled with a samurai sword, visits Logan and tells him that her master, the powerful businessman Yashida, (Hal Yamanouchi) is dying and wants to see him for the last time. Yashida was a Japanese soldier that Logan saved the life of in Nagasaki in World War II. Logan travels Japan with Yukio and the moribund Yashida offers mortality to Logan but Logan does not accept the offer. While sleeping, Logan has a weird dream involving Yashida's doctor Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) and soon Yashida dies. Logan stays for the funeral and the Yakuza tries to abduct Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) during the ceremony. Logan saves and escapes with Mariko, but he is shot and does not heal from the wounds. Logan protects Mariko and tries to find out what has happened to him.

This movie is as close to the Chris Claremont iteration of the character as you're ever going to get on the big screen and that's a bit of a pity but nonetheless i'll take what I can get. This is not your typical superhero action movie that sees big world threatening events going on but rather it's a character study that really delves into the mind and psyche of Wolverine.

First of all I have to say that Hugh Jackman does one helluva job capturing the world weariness and troubled mind of Wolverine as a soldier who's forever fighting a war. His tone of voice was a lot more somber and deeper and in the action/intense scenes the anger and threat level that he gives off is just off the charts. This movie has a Wolverine that actually feels like someone who could possibly go off the deep end and give into his baser animalistic urges.

The movie has many themes such as duty, honor and the idea of a soldier always needing a war to fight. The whole idea of Wolverine in Japan in a totally different culture where honor and duty are so prized gives the movie a unique feel. In a bit of a humorous scene you get a physical manifestation of Logan being completely out of his element when he's forced to be scrubbed down and shaved before seeing Yashida for the first time. There are other moments such as when Logan and Mariko are having dinner in her home in the south where she explains the situation to him. In the scene Logan is told that it's bad luck to use chopsticks with the right hand and she says in a resigned manner after explaining her situation that she'd never hope for him to understand since he's not Japanese.

The cast in the movie are uniformly good. I especially enjoyed Rila Fukushima as Yukio. She brought this serious yet at the same time kind of quirky sensibility to her character. The fact that she's firecely protective of those she's charged to look after is a great thing. She's there for Wolverine when he needs her most when his healing factor is totally shot and he needs backup. There is even a slight buddy cop dynamic to the Wolverine/Yukio relationship as at first he doesn't really give a damn about her but she sees the goodness and him and gives herself totally to protect him to the point that she becomes his bodyguard/partner by film's end.

The other performance I most enjoyed was Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper. It's one of those two dimensional villain type roles with the added twist of using her seductiveness to influence and get close to people but I thought she did it most excellently. There's a menacing seductive charm to her that makes you almost like the character but once you see what she's doing you know she's rotten to the core. That kind of malevolent charm is hard to pull off as you either become a scene chewer or you become too charming and you can't hate the character. Here she gives it just enough charm to make it work. The scene towards the end of the movie with the subdued Wolverine and her telling him exactly how she's serving Yashida is a great example of the malevolent charm she displays throughout.

One last thing before I give my rating, the idea of using the ghost/image of Jean Grey as Logan's guide works quite well. There's a push/pull to it though as she also represents his need to want to be mortal and die but he's so duty bound to do good and right wrongs without realizing it that he stubbornly refuses to let go of life even when he's literally within a hairbreadth away from death.

Wonderful film *** stars and possibly **** after I read the '82 Wolverine Miniseries from Claremont that this film borrows heavily from.