The Wolverine - Hey It's a Comic Book Movie

Recently, there seems to be a continuous attack on the big budget movies, especially in light of the number of failures this summer.  I know these movies are not among the great films.  I know that they are not going to affect the industry except in a bad way if they continue to fail at the box office.  I also know they are exactly what have been done for years in the movie theaters since the rise of Jaws.  The blockbuster movie is a summer staple.  Sorry George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg, I just don't see your prediction of hundred dollar movies that run in the same movie house for months coming to pass.  The market is not just the US.  The fastest growing market for our big summer movies is China.  So that all said, I love block busters.  Are some stinkers? Yes.  Are some pure fun? Yes.  Are they glossy and glitzy and over-the-top? Well, duh.

I went to The Wolverine.  It was nothing new.  It was nothing unexpected.  It was, in fact, exactly as expected.  I liked it.  Hugh Jackman, once again dons his adamantium claws and takes the show on the road. Wolverine is still the same angst ridden and oldest of the mutants.  He is a cross-over character that is in X-Men, The Avenger, Origins, Spiderman, and any number of Marvel's comic book releases.  Wolverine is who he is and so is the movie.  It is both back story for the character, a better storyline than the first Wolverine X-Men movie, and also a set up for the next X-Men movie, Days of Future Past.

Logan, tormented by his killing of Jean Grey in the worst of the original three X-Men films,  is found by Yukio, a mutant who can forsee death.  Yukio's job is to bring the Wolverine to Japan to say goodbye to a Japanese soldier, Yashida,  whose life he saved in  World War II.  It seems that someone was actually able to capture Wolverine and built a prison camp near either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.  What is more they can apparently wait out the radioactive poisoning by hiding in a hole. I know. I know.  It doesn't make sense to me either, but I remind you of the title of this review.

In Japan, Logan must return to his hero character and protect Yashida's granddaughter, Mariko from the Yakuza, her father, the black ninjas, and a mutant called the Viper, all while dealing with his guilt over Jean's death, falling in love with Mariko, and dealing with his immortality and the aftermath of watching those you love die.  He has become a ronin...a samurai warrior with no master.   He is a warrior that desires a warrior's death, but it cannot come.  Deep, huh?

It is a comic book movie.  It is exactly what you expect.  It is what it needs to be.  It is fun, and it is action filled.  The hero is classic and filled with understandable anguish over the acts he has committed. It is over the top and has a predictable storyline.  The bad guys are obvious and the ending battle is predictable.  There is also one piece of film history homage paid to Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (a Japanese version of Macbeth).  At least I think it was.  I will show you the pic from Throne of Blood and you can make your own judgment when you see The Wolverine.  And yes, Jackman really is the buff.

You will most likely enjoy the movie.  I didk  It is all I expected. Save your money on the 3D, by the way.  I will buy the DVD