Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

While I’ve enjoyed the X-Men movies they haven’t significantly resonated with me as I was never really invested in the Marvel universe. The Wolverine is an exception. Beautiful produced, directed, and photographed, the movie shines with intense presence of Hugh Jackman’s Logan, the man out of time who struggles to balance a personal code of honor and sense of loss against the world around him.

Rila Fukushima as Logan’s “bodyguard.”

Action sequences are spectacular and start with the hellish atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki during WWII. Then we spend most of our time embedded in a view of modern Japan that communicates better than most western movies Japan’s cultural uniqueness.

In the end, though, we are dealing with characters originating in comic books. The final confrontation is a CGI-heavy battle that, as good as it is, we’ve seen before.

Still, I found much to love in this movie. It’s all tied together by Hugh Jackman’s physicality and intensity. Whoever tapped him to play the Wolverine so many movies ago made a wise decision.

Review copyright © 2013 by Dennis D. McDonald