The Wolverine and You

Friday was my wife's birthday and we went and saw the Wolverine in theaters. If I haven't mentioned it before, Wolverine is my wife's absolute favorite comic book character. She collected his series as a teenager. Needless to say she was extremely supportive of my comic habit when we first started dating.

I hated the first movie. I can't state specifics because I only saw the movie once and a long time ago. I thought this one was a lot better. It picks up the pieces from X-Men Last Stand. The movie takes place mostly in Japan and is loosely based on the original limited series from the 1980s.

Wolverine and Japan are a good mix. It was long overdue for the movies to take him there. The action was good in this movie. I little different for a superhero flick but Wolverine is a good character to go in a different direction with. It felt more like a 90s action flick when the fights started up. More grounded in reality and a little more gritty. Not as flashy as you would think a superhero usually has. I thought the plot was good overall. It was a pretty focused plot. There were just the right amount of characters and it felt like everyone served a purpose.

The pacing was a bit of an issue though. It felt like it took 30-40 minutes to do all the setup necessary for the plot. Wolverine starts out in Alaska and that part of it felt unnecessary. His "one with nature" act was really cliche and eye rolling. The movie suffered from being really predictable as well. There were a couple of twists in there and no one was surprised by them.

Overall, I would give this a high C+ or a really low B- depending on my mood at any given moment. I was dreading this movie but I was pleasantly surprised. I doubt I would ever purchase this on blu-ray but if I ran into it on TNT several years from now, I might stop and watch.