The early years of James Logan, featuring his rivalry with his brother Victor Creed, his service in the special forces team Weapon X, and his experimentation into the metal-lined mutant Wolverine.
Director:
Gavin Hood
Stars:
Hugh Jackman,
Liev Schreiber,
Ryan Reynolds
The human government develops a cure for mutations, and Jean Gray becomes a darker uncontrollable persona called the Phoenix who allies with Magneto, causing escalation into an all-out battle for the X-Men.
In a world where mutants (evolved super-powered humans) exist and are discriminated against, two groups form for an inevitable clash: the supremacist Brotherhood, and the pacifist X-Men.
Director:
Bryan Singer
Stars:
Patrick Stewart,
Hugh Jackman,
Ian McKellen
In the 1960s, superpowered humans Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr work together to find others like them, but Erik's vengeful pursuit of an ambitious mutant who ruined his life causes a schism to divide them.
Director:
Matthew Vaughn
Stars:
James McAvoy,
Michael Fassbender,
Jennifer Lawrence
In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to safety.
After Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically altered spider, he gains newfound, spider-like powers and ventures out to solve the mystery of his parent's mysterious death.
When bitten by a genetically modified spider, a nerdy, shy, and awkward high school student gains spider-like abilities that he eventually must use to fight evil as a superhero after tragedy befalls his family.
In modern day Japan, Wolverine is out of his depth in an unknown world as he faces his ultimate nemesis in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Vulnerable for the first time and pushed to his physical and emotional limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel but also his inner struggle against his own near-immortality, emerging more powerful than we have ever seen him before.Written by
Twentieth Century Fox
Jessica Biel was offered the role of Viper, but a deal couldn't be reached, and she dropped out. See more »
Goofs
(at around 33 mins) At the funeral scene, Yukio points at the silver armor and said it belongs to "Shiruba Samurai", The Silver Samurai. "Shi-ru-ba" is Japanese pronunciation of English word "Silver". The Japanese word for Silver is "Gin". Silver Samurai, if any, will be called "Gin no Samurai" not "Shiruba Samurai". See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
[an air raid begins on Nagasaki. At a prison camp, a young lieutenant sets all the prisoners free]
Young Yashida:
You! Go! Go!
Logan:
[in a pit]
That was a B-29, bub. There's no outrunning what's coming. You're better off down here. I'd hurry if I were you.
See more »
Crazy Credits
SPOILER: There is a scene in the closing credits: as Wolverine enters an airport security check, he comes face to face with Magneto and Professor X, who request his assistance for a new threat to mutants. This leads into X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). See more »
Alternate Versions
Extended version contains the following changes in addition to more graphic violence:
While Yukio sleeps during the jet flight, there's an additional flashback of Logan with Yashida in the bunker calling the former kuzuri and asking how old is he.
In the limo on the way to see Yashida, Yukio describes a little more about Yashida with Logan's cynical remark: "Wow, did they give you a little card to memorize?"
Before the servants bathe Logan, he remarks that the other shoes are smaller than his.
There's an additional exchange between Yashida and Logan as Yukio was to give Logan his surgical mask.
The servant informs Shingen that Yashida wants to seem him. He gets up and dresses up before Mariko comes in demanding to see him. Shingen brushes her aside and in the next new sequence, there's a father and son exchange where they talk about assuming control of the company, confirming who is the successor and Shingen complaining about bringing in the stranger. Logan watches them from his room.
An additional set-piece taking place in the hotel where Logan and Mariko hide. Logan sees two men on the street and decides to confront them. Before a thug fires at him, he has a hallucination of Jean but gets pushed off from the balcony. The other thug fires the taser at him and we see the both thugs having fun at him. As the gunman is about to shoot Logan one more time, the other thug crashes onto the car, with a knife on the back. Mariko throws another knife at the other thug, before Logan uses the taser at him.
In the countryside retreat, Mariko gives Logan a dry set of clothes before heading to the bedroom.
When Yukio and Logan return back to Yashida family house to find Shingen, they found three corpses on the floor
There's an exchange between Viper and Harada, on Mariko's safety. She instructs him to dip the arrows in the poison that she has prepared to slow Logan down.
The second additional set-piece in the film with Logan battling ninjas on bikes. Yukio comes into assisting him with the snow blower. He blows the vehicle up before running into the tower. Meanwhile, Harada is also seen following Viper's instruction, dipping his arrows with her poison.
There's a scene also explaining why Yukio saves Logan again during the fight with Viper: she regains her consciousness and follows the trail to the tower.
I didn't much care for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman still was, and always will be, a brilliant Wolverine, but the other characters felt lackluster, the villain was weak and the storyline didn't fit well with the other X-Men movies. It didn't have the same feel.
For some time it seemed that the poor critical performances of both that and X-Men 3 would mean there would be no more movies with Wolverine in them, at least in a leading role. Luckily, the film makers decided to do one more and if this particular movie is going to be the last one, I for one can move on happy with what I got.
The Wolverine is a movie that works both as a continuation of the X-Men storyline, as well as a standalone movie. The focus is kept heavily on Hugh Jackman, which works for the movie's advantage. There are some callbacks to the events of the trilogy, but as a whole I think this film could have worked just as well without them, if not better, as they are a bit distracting from time to time. But most of the time the focus is on where it should be. In this movie Logan travels to Japan in order to meet an old acquaintance, who wants to settle old scores before his demise. In Japan we get some gorgeous scenery, nice atmosphere, intriguing settings, believable characters, all that good stuff.
I especially liked Tao Okamoto's character Mariko, the granddaughter of Wolverine's old friend. Jackman and Okamoto have brilliant chemistry together and when the movie slows down during the second act to give them time to simply interact with one another, it feels justified. Usually that kind of slowing down in an action movie feels boring and unneeded, even sappy, but here it works because the actors have the skills to pull it off. Which is a great thing, because it gives the movie more depth and we get a chance to know Wolverine in a new way that the Origins movie tried to reach, but never could because of its lack of emotional maturity.
Unfortunately this film has one major flaw and that is the unbelievably weak villain, known as Viper. Her actress, Svetlana Khodchenkova, just doesn't have the screen presence or acting skills to give the character any memorable attributes. She merely stands there, struts around in her skintight suit and spouts the dialogue. That's it. Sure part of that is poor writing, but it's still rather jarring because the two main protagonists are so damn good. If only the villain had been as good, this could easily have been one of the best Marvel movies yet made.
As it is, it's still fine. The two main characters are very good, most of the side characters do a good job as well, the action works wonderfully, the Japanese setting gives the film a nice coating of majesty and even the story, while nothing that extraordinary, functions well enough for us to enjoy it. The villain is weak, very weak in fact, which keeps the film from being great, but you can overlook it and focus on the good stuff.
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I didn't much care for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman still was, and always will be, a brilliant Wolverine, but the other characters felt lackluster, the villain was weak and the storyline didn't fit well with the other X-Men movies. It didn't have the same feel.
For some time it seemed that the poor critical performances of both that and X-Men 3 would mean there would be no more movies with Wolverine in them, at least in a leading role. Luckily, the film makers decided to do one more and if this particular movie is going to be the last one, I for one can move on happy with what I got.
The Wolverine is a movie that works both as a continuation of the X-Men storyline, as well as a standalone movie. The focus is kept heavily on Hugh Jackman, which works for the movie's advantage. There are some callbacks to the events of the trilogy, but as a whole I think this film could have worked just as well without them, if not better, as they are a bit distracting from time to time. But most of the time the focus is on where it should be. In this movie Logan travels to Japan in order to meet an old acquaintance, who wants to settle old scores before his demise. In Japan we get some gorgeous scenery, nice atmosphere, intriguing settings, believable characters, all that good stuff.
I especially liked Tao Okamoto's character Mariko, the granddaughter of Wolverine's old friend. Jackman and Okamoto have brilliant chemistry together and when the movie slows down during the second act to give them time to simply interact with one another, it feels justified. Usually that kind of slowing down in an action movie feels boring and unneeded, even sappy, but here it works because the actors have the skills to pull it off. Which is a great thing, because it gives the movie more depth and we get a chance to know Wolverine in a new way that the Origins movie tried to reach, but never could because of its lack of emotional maturity.
Unfortunately this film has one major flaw and that is the unbelievably weak villain, known as Viper. Her actress, Svetlana Khodchenkova, just doesn't have the screen presence or acting skills to give the character any memorable attributes. She merely stands there, struts around in her skintight suit and spouts the dialogue. That's it. Sure part of that is poor writing, but it's still rather jarring because the two main protagonists are so damn good. If only the villain had been as good, this could easily have been one of the best Marvel movies yet made.
As it is, it's still fine. The two main characters are very good, most of the side characters do a good job as well, the action works wonderfully, the Japanese setting gives the film a nice coating of majesty and even the story, while nothing that extraordinary, functions well enough for us to enjoy it. The villain is weak, very weak in fact, which keeps the film from being great, but you can overlook it and focus on the good stuff.