IMDB Score – 6.8
Rotten Tomato Score – 69%

Directed By – James Mangold
Starring – Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, and Will Yun Lee

When Wolverine is summoned to Japan by an old acquaintance, he is embroiled in a conflict that forces him to confront his own demons.

If you’ve read my reviews over the last year you may have learned that I’m not a huge fan of comic book films. Never having been into them, I really only connect with the films of each franchise and tailor my opinions from them. I don’t like Superman. Thor never interested me. Most of the Avengers themselves never really peaked my interest but have produced two very well done films (Ironman and Avengers). I enjoyed the Spiderman cartoon as a kid but the movies left little to be desired. Batman has always been my favorite but mostly due to the fact that Christopher Nolan is a great director. Finally we come to the X-Men which I’ve seen all the films involved in the series. There have been great ones (X2 and First Class) and horrible ones (Last Stand and Origins). I was always interested in Wolverine and the fact that Hugh Jackman has always played him so well added to the want to see this film. I was surprised but not floored.

What I liked…

I enjoyed the first two thirds of the film. It was enjoyable and entertaining as action set pieces and fight scenes were fun to watch. While lacking any real interesting villains, the film picked up the slack by having a good amount of henchmen falling to their deaths at the hands of the Wolverine. One set piece on a train was pretty fun to watch and we actually got to see most of the action instead of seeing a bunch of bodies blurring by. The film also had a deeper back story with Logan and Jean that played out through the film that kept the movie from just being silly and actually meaning something.

What I didn’t like…

The acting was shit besides Jackman. Svetlana Khodchenkova was particularly horrible as the films main villain. The movie also fell into a pit of CGI and comic book blandness that I had during the last act. At that point I really didn’t care much what happened to anybody. It pissed me off. The whole “OH MAN IT WAS ACTUALLY YOU!?” routine is getting real old real fast. No creativity at all.

Overall the film was a decent watch with an absolutely boring and stale ending that nearly ruined it for me. The scene at the end of the credits setting up the next X-Men movie was worth it though.

2.5/5