The Wolverine: It slices! It dices!

It's a sentiment that's been heard a lot lately - I enjoyed The Wolverine a lot more than I expected to. After the painfulness that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, hardcore Logan fans wanted the real deal. So excitement for this new iteration was full of grizzled optimism. James Mangold is a terrific director, with Cop Land, 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line among his many fine films. And I was definitely entertained by The Wolverine - and not simply because of its superiority when compared with Origins - because a bite of lobster tastes great if you've just been dining on spam. Mangold and screenwriters Mark Bomback and Scott Frank have crafted a script that moves along briskly, holds your attention and is much more faithful to a classic story ark, as depicted by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. It's fun and fast-paced, but it definitely left me pining.

Jackman is great, and the movie opens with an attention-getting prologue during the bombing of Nagasaki in a P.O.W. camp where Logan/Wolverine is held prisoner. Acts of compassion and honor during the phenomenal rendering of the blast set events in motion that will only come full-circle in the here and now.

Most of The Wolverine takes place in Japan, and with it's "Gaijin"-in-a-strange-land plot, the film has Jackman looking to solve a mystery - and then some - with the help of two very different women. Yukio (Rila Fukushima) is the blade for hire who brings Logan to Japan at the behest of her dying employer - to settle an old debt of honor. When he meets and falls in love with Mariko (Tao Okamoto), the film began to lose me. Mariko is "troubled," but she's also a bit of a cliche porcelain doll, in addition to being Eugene Tooms thin - she needs to eat a sandwich already. Theirs is very much a You Only Live Twice love affair, with Mariko seeming deadly dull in contrast with Yukio's capable smirks - Yukio's partnership with Logan as comrades in arms holds the film together.

There are some changes to the plot from its comic source, but they're well reasoned and effective. You will see a Silver Samurai - and he's pretty awesome to behold. Logan's climactic assault once again lends the film a strong Bond flavor.

If the film has a failing, sadly it's in the generic look of the cinematography by Ross Emery - journeyman, but lackluster. There's a lack of atmosphere to a lot of the compositions here and never has a film set in Japan felt more like Canada. Many of the initial Japanese action sequences are inexplicably sunny and cheerful, with all the menace of a strip mall:

I very quickly found myself wishing that more care was put into designing the look of the film. What's missing is the strong sense of atmosphere and culture we've come to expect from previous actioners set in Japan -take Jan de Bont's work in Black Rain, Robert Richardson's in Kill Bill - or 1974's The Yakuza...    

Where The Wolverine misses an opportunity is at making the film feel even more like a hyper-cool graphic novel by building on the legacy of those previous films - a lot of the film is shot like generic TV, and that's pretty hard to ignore. Plus, for a film as violent as it is, The Wolverine is unbelievably bloodless. With the amount of swordplay on display here, there's barely a mop to be needed anywhere! The move to dial it down for PG-13 combined with the tepid look of the film leaves you feeling less transported than you want to be. As my good friend (and noted Wolverine authority) Jonas reminded me, The Wolverine was originally going to be a Darren Aronofsky film (The Wrestler, Black Swan) and you just can't help but yearn for the mayhem he would have unleashed with someone like Matthew Libatique or Maryse Alberti at his side. It may sound like I'm carping, but to actually get to shoot overseas and not take full advantage of that visually is a blown opportunity.

Still - I undeniably had fun at The Wolverine - it's old fashioned and seldom boring and maintains a great sense of energy. I just wish it felt more like Black Rain and less like a Roger Moore Bond in places. It's definitely worth seeing and could even send you home searching for your Silver Samurai figure...