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THE WOLVERINE
Starring Hugh Jackman (Logan / Wolverine), Hiroyuki Sanada (Shingen), Will Yun Lee (Harada), Tao Okamoto (Mariko), Rila Fukushima (Yukio), and Famke Janssen (Jean Grey) with a credits scene featuring Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X and Ian McKellen as Erik Lensherr / Magneto
Directed by James Mangold
Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker
Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank
Music By Marco Beltrami
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Run Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes
World Premier: July 24, 2013 (Various International Markets)
Opening Weekend Box Office: $53 million
Worldwide Box Office: $414 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 71%
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Fun The Wolverine Facts:
The Wolverine drew large inspiration from Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s 1982 Wolverine limited series, a story centered in Japan. This four-issue tale is sacred to many longtime fans of Wolverine as it literally and figuratively took the character to some exciting new places. The Wolverine miniseries and the 2013 film The Wolverine share a lot of common characters and themes, including Ninjas, Mariko, Yukio, The Silver Samurai, and Wolverine stabbing a bear. The film is far from a page-for-page adaptation, but it does stay true to the series on which it is based, as well as to the spirit of the Wolverine character.
Actor Hugh Jackman has gone on record stating that Claremont and Miller’s 1982 Wolverine limited series is his favorite Wolverine story and knowing that series was going to serve as the inspiration of this movie made him as excited as he’d ever been to portray Logan on film.
The Wolverine marked actor Hugh Jackman’s sixth time portraying Wolverine on film (X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and X-Men: First Class). The Wolverine is a sequel to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and also a part of the X-Men movie Universe. The Wolverine takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand and revolves around a Logan who has been deeply traumatized by having to kill his beloved Jean Grey (as seen in X-Men: The Last Stand), and that is haunted and tortured by her memory.
Bryan Singer (who directed X-Men and X-2: X-Men United) was approached to direct The Wolverine, but he turned the offer down. Darren Aronofsky took the job in the Fall of 2010 but bolted in the Spring of 2011. Production was delayed by the tragic earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in March of 2011, as the filmmakers wished to film several scenes in Japan. James Mangold was hired to direct The Wolverine in the Summer of 2011. The Wolverine finally commenced filming in the Summer of 2012, shooting in both Australia and Japan, with principal photography wrapping on November 21, 2012.
The post-credits scene of The Wolverine featuring the return of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Erik Lensherr’s Magneto was shot in Canada and was a contribution from Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg as the two of them were actively working on X-Men: Days of Future Past. This scene reveals that Charles Xavier is still alive in this Universe after having successfully transferred his consciousness into the body of his comatose twin brother in the post-credits scene of X-Men: The Last Stand, and that Magneto has gotten his mutant abilities back after having been supposedly “cured” in X-Men: The Last Stand. This reveal was teased at the end of that movie when Magneto is seen playing chess alone in a park and one of the pieces appear to move due to his powers. The scene shot for The Wolverine shows Erik and Charles working together once again and recruiting Logan for a mission of the utmost importance.
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A deleted scene for The Wolverine was filmed in which Yukio gifts Logan with an outfit that resembles the Wolverine character’s traditional comic book costume but including this scene in the film was ultimately decided against. Jackman is set to star as Wolverine, complete with the suit however, in Marvel Studios’ upcoming film Deadpool 3.
Fox released a Blu-ray Extended Cut of The Wolverine in the Fall of 2013, titled The Wolverine: The Unleashed Extended Edition. This version of the film featured a little more violence and more character interaction.
The Wolverine was one of three Marvel films produced in 2013, but The Wolverine was made without any input from Marvel Studios, as the working relationship between Marvel and Fox ended with 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, with Marvel Entertainment promoting Kevin Feige to lead the Marvel Studios team that would birth the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios produced both Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World in 2013. Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion and the second highest-grossing film of the year) and Thor: The Dark World ($644 million and the tenth highest-grossing film of the year) both outperformed The Wolverine ($414 million) at the worldwide box office, but The Wolverine was Fox’s highest-grossing X-Men film since 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, outperforming 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and 2011’s X-Men: First Class.
Beyond The Wolverine, 2014 saw the past and present X-Men Cinematic mythologies collied in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Ensuing X-Men films by Fox included 2016’s Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse, and 2017’s Logan.
On December 17, 2017, the Walt Disney Company announced that an agreement had been reached with 20th Century Fox that would see Disney acquire Fox’s television and film divisions, among other things. Disney had acquired Marvel Entertainment at the end of 2009, and Marvel Studios with it. The lucrative Fox deal therefore landed the film rights to Marvel’s mutants under the Disney / Marvel Studios umbrella. Fox shareholders unanimously approved the transaction on July 27, 2018, and the deal was finalized on March 20, 2019. In the meantime, Deadpool 2 was released theatrically in 2018, followed by Dark Phoenix in 2019, and New Mutants in 2020. New Mutants marked the thirteenth X-Men film and the last X-Men project produced by the previous regime at Fox.
2022’s Marvel Studios film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw Marvel Studios cast actor Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier / Professor X 9-years removed from The Wolverine. Stewart had portrayed Xavier in X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Logan. The version of the Xavier character that Stewart portrayed in Multiverse of Madness however, has been described as a Multiversal Variant (from Earth-838) of the Xavier seen in the previous X-Men films. Even though this version of Xavier was not from the 616-Universe, the inclusion of Xavier in the Doctor Strange sequel was historically significant, as it marked the first appearance of a mutant character within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Furthermore, the Xavier from Earth-838 was not only the leader of The X-Men, but also a member of the esteemed Illuminati which consisted of Mister Fantastic (Reed Richards), Captain Carter (Peggy Carter), Black Bolt, Captain Marvel (Maria Rambeau), and Karl Mordo (who replaced Earth-838’s Doctor Strange), and the film treated longtime Marvel movie fans with a unique opportunity to see Xavier share the screen with MCU veterans such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Hayley Atwell, and Elizabeth Olsen.
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My The Wolverine Review
The Wolverine opens in 1945, during the days of World War II. Logan is being held prisoner at a Prisoner of War camp in Nagasaki, Japan. Soon, an atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki; the same type of bomb which had been dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier, in what is a very graphic and quite disturbing scene, Logan shields one of his captors from the blast and is consequently horrifically wounded, but his healing factor of course, allows him to survive and for his wounds to heal. We see the young man (Ichiro Yashida) in a state of shock, confusion, terror, and bewilderment over what he has just seen Logan do and endure.
Jump ahead to present day, and Logan is living in isolation in Canada. He has been through some shit of course, and he looks like it. He has long, unkempt hair and a bushy beard and after nearly a couple hundred years of existence, he has reached a point where he is done trying to be a hero and just wants to be left alone.
Soon, a mutant woman named Yukio with the ability to see into the future and behold one’s death is sent by none other than Ichiro to bring Logan to Japan. Ichiro is now a wealthy CEO of a tech company, but none of that matters, for Ichiro is dying of cancer. Ichiro insists that he wants Logan to come to Japan so that he can repay him for the act of saving his life all those years ago, and Logan agrees to go with Yukio.
In Japan, Logan meets Ichiro’s son Shingen and Ichiro’s granddaughter Mariko, and learns the details of the debt that Ichiro wishes to repay Logan with, and things get pretty dark here, as Ichiro reveals that he has discovered a way to transfer Logan’s healing factor from Logan to another person. Ichiro of course, wants to be that person, and in return, Logan, as Ichiro sees it, will be gifted with being able to die. For at this point in his life, death is something that Logan desperately craves. He is terribly haunted by the sins of his past and all of the tragedy that his life has brought him, even before his mutation manifested itself when he was a frail and sickly young boy. Logan’s work with Charles Xavier has allowed him to remember a lot of things that he’d forgotten after being shot in the head by William Stryker, and while we are never told how much Logan remembers up to this point in his story, we are left with the impression that he remembers enough to realize that he was probably better off not remembering any of it. Again, Logan is haunted, and Logan is tortured and Logan now, more so than at any other time in his life, views his mutation as a curse. So, Ichiro’s offer does appeal to him on some level. However, Logan has a lot of nobility, as we’ve seen throughout his story, and he views his mutation as such a curse, he wouldn’t dare allow someone else to be afflicted by it. So, Logan turns down Ichiro’s offer for Ichiro’s own good.
Logan has no idea the lengths to which Ichiro’s obsession with him and his perceived immortality has grown however, and Ichiro’s doctor (who is actually a mutant known as Viper) sneaks into Logan’s bedroom while he is asleep that night and injects Logan with a mysterious and deadly substance.
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The next morning, Logan learns from Yukio that Ichiro has died. Logan attends the funeral and there, he encounters a fleet of Yakuza gangsters that try to abduct Mariko. Logan is shot as he tries to protect Mariko, and he notices that his healing factor is not what it usually is after suffering the wound. From there, Logan battles the Yakuza aboard a speeding train and suffers more injuries. He and Mariko lay low at a hotel while Viper instructs her bodyguard Harada to locate the both of them.
From there, Logan and Mariko (who is actually engaged to be married to another man) begin to fall in love. Meanwhile, Yukio has a vision of Logan’s death, seeing him die as she describes it “while holding his own heart in his hand.” She goes to warn Logan, and Mariko is abducted before she gets there.
Logan and Yukio confront Mariko’s fiancé and he admits that he conspired with Shingen to abduct Mariko out of anger that Mariko was left control of her grandfather’s company over Shingen, Ichiro’s son. Shingen seeks to meet with Mariko, but she again abducted, this time by Harada and his fleet of ninjas.
Desperate to rescue Mariko, Logan and Yukio commandeer one of Ichiro’s advanced machines and discover that he has been injected with a robotic parasite that has attached itself to Logan’s heart, and that it is this parasite that is crippling his healing factor. Logan cuts himself open to extract the parasite while Yukio fights off an invading Shingen. Logan performs surgery on himself and is successful and his healing factor is returned to him which enables him to assist Mariko and kill Shingen. Logan then sets out to save Mariko and he is abducted after a fight against Harada’s ninjas.
From there, Viper places Logan within a machine that she says will extract his healing factor and she introduces him to The Silver Samurai. The Samurai wields a pair of Katanas that are comprised of Adamantium and wears an electro-mechanical suit of Japanese armor. Mariko soon breaks free and arrives to assist Logan. Harada sees the error of his ways and tries to assist Mariko and Logan but is killed by The Silver Samurai.
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This leads to Wolverine vs The Silver Samurai. Yukio kills Viper while Logan brawls with The Samurai, who manages to slice off Logan’s claws before beginning the process of absorbing Logan’s healing factor. The Silver Samurai is of course revealed to be Ichiro, who’d faked his own death. As Ichiro begins to reclaim his youth, Mariko stabs her grandfather with Logan’s severed claws. Logan then regenerates his bone claws and kills Ichiro. Logan decides to leave Japan and Yukio leaves with him while Mariko officially takes over her grandfather’s company.
My feelings for The Wolverine are quite similar to my feelings for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, if you’ve read that review. The first two acts were pretty great, but things fell apart big time in act three. I think the atomic bomb scene is one of the best Wolverine sequences ever put on film, and I enjoyed the stuff with Jean and the bear, and I thought the bullet train sequence was spectacular, and I really liked Yukio, but as a viewer, I never believed in Logan’s romance with Mariko. There was just something off with the chemistry there and maybe that was because of all of the Jean stuff, or maybe it was an issue with the actors, I don’t know, but I thought it was a miss.
I felt The Wolverine had some solid action and suspense but was oftentimes lacking in the heart and emotion departments. Beyond that, I loathed how The Silver Samurai was executed. The Ichiro reveal was beyond predictable, and the character quickly fell into the loud, boisterous, cackling sort of dumb stereotypical villain category that so often plagues superhero movies. I didn’t like the suit, I didn’t like the actor, and I didn’t like the Wolverine vs Silver Samurai fight, which should have been one of the highlights of this movie.
Act three really does come close to outright ruining this film, but The Wolverine is salvaged by the stellar performance of Hugh Jackman, who you could tell was giving his all and had a lot of fun with this movie! When Hugh Jackman is on the screen as Wolverine, this movie is watchable, and what’s not to love about Wolverine fighting ninjas; a sequence that makes the Extended Edition my choice for watching this movie.
I really think Hugh Jackman deserved a better script to compliment the strong and spirited performance that he gave in this film, for had he been afforded that, The Wolverine may have gone down as the definitive Wolverine story for moviegoers, but it was not to be, and this movie is instead an oftentimes overlooked piece of Logan’s cinematic history. As it stands, this was another case of Fox starting strong but failing to stick the landing.
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Highlights of The Wolverine:
Hugh Jackman is Logan / Wolverine
The Atomic Bomb Scene
Fight atop the Speeding Train
Rila Fukushima as Yukio
Cinematography
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Notable MCU Concepts and Characters Introduced:
The Wolverine serves as a sequel to each of the Fox X-Men / Wolverine films that were released from 2000-2011, which follow the respective journeys of a Universe of characters that are rumored to be set to be formally introduced in Marvel Studios’ upcoming film Deadpool 3, including a purported Variant of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. The MCU’s Earth-838 version of Charles Xavier / Professor X (seen in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) looks nearly identical to the Professor X seen in the credits of The Wolverine, with both characters portrayed by actor Patrick Stewart.
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