Wait, where are the falling buildings? Why is it that life on earth as we know it isn’t in peril? Doesn’t director James Mangold know that Summer 2013 is all-apocalypse all the time when it comes to blockbusters?
Yet here’s The Wolverine, the sixth film in the X-Men franchise, in which only a handful of the good guys are ever in any real danger, and if evil wins out … well, it would be spoiling things to give too many details, so suffice it to say that if evil wins the day, the only media outlets covering it would be the likes of the Financial Times.
The Wolverine is that rare (and growing rarer) breed, the intimate super-hero movie, a story that’s all about isolating our genetically mutated hero — Hugh Jackman’s Logan/Wolverine — and making him think and talk about his feelings. Sure, he gets to punch faces and use those adamantium claws to slash some jugulars (remarkably bloodlessly — this is PG-13 jugular-slashing), but he doesn’t feel too great about it.
He’s got some heavy past trauma he’s trying to work through – if you’ve forgotten what happened at the end of 2006’s much-maligned X-Men: The Last Stand, you may want to brush up, as Mangold doesn’t bother with recapping. Logan is a loner now, generally more at home in a caveside camp communing with grizzlies. Though when Mariko (Tao Okamoto), an attractive Japanese heiress and granddaughter of an old friend, is in danger, he can be pretty comfy in a cozy Japanese bayside cottage learning the customary way to eat with chopsticks.
I’d like to credit Mangold, along with writers Christopher McQuarrie, Mark Bomback and Scott Frank for their good intentions; the smaller scope and lighter tone of their film is a tonic after bloated doom and gloom of Man of Steel. Prominent roles for women — as strong partners, as warriors and as villains, not just as damsels in distress, also make for a nice change of pace.