The Wolverine (2013)

Director: James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukishami, Svetlana Kodchenkova, Brian Tee, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hal Yamanouchi, Famke Janssen
Certificate: 12
Genre: Superhero
Awards: None

The Wolverine is not a sequel to the 2009 X-Men Origins: Wolverine - as you may expect - but a follow up to X-Men: The Last Stand, making this film the most recent X-Men film in chronological order.

After killing Jean (Janssen) in the last film, Logan (Jackman) is a bit of a mess and just really feels sorry for himself. However, when he is contacted by a man - Yashida (Yamanouchi) he saved from an atom bomb in Japan, he is given a chance to give up his immortality and have a normal life (well he'll still have claws but it's more normal than the life he has now). Logan refuses and then Mariko (Okamoto), Yashida's granddaughter is kidnapped by people who work for a mysterious mutant called the Viper (Kodchenkova).

The real stand out point of this film is that it doesn't feel like an X-Men film. With only a handful of mutants, this feels completely different and focuses more on Wolverine and his problems rather than big fights between lots of people with different powers. That doesn't mean their isn't any fighting in it. Wolverine slices away like he's playing Fruit Ninja and some of the deaths are quite gruesome and shocking.

The Wolverine is very enjoyable film and I think the second best of the franchise after First Class, but it doesn't add anything to the X-Men story. This is basically the film about when the Wolverine went on holiday.

****Good