Movie Review: The Wolverine

Fear not, the latest film in Fox's godforsaken X-Men franchise isn't all that bad. I mean, it's still pretty crappy overall, especially when compared to Marvel's phase one films, but it's not as horrible as the train wreck that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Of course when the bar is set so ridiculously low as that...

Before we begin, it must be said that continuity between Fox's X-Men films is completely fucked. You'd need a PhD in bullshit studies if you want to decipher the madness that Fox has unleashed upon us (or you could check out this handy dandy X-Men film study guide). So anyways, this new Wolverine film is a direct sequel to the also heinous, X-Men: The Last Stand, not like Origins or X-Men: First Class which were prequels, and see's Wolverine moping around in the wilderness all emo because he killed Jean Grey like five years earlier. Anyways, he's summoned to Japan to take care of some loose ends from his past and ends up kinda losing his powers (healing factor: not claws) and kinda falling in love with some smoking hot Japanese babe. He eventually comes to terms with what it means to be a hero, after battling his animal urges for like several centuries, and learns that at the end of the day the mutant powers don't make the man. That, and he finally puts that Jean Grey guilt trip behind him cause his new girl is like really cute. The end.

Mariko = best thing about the movie

Of course none of that crap matters. What does matter is this laundry list of complaints. Warning....nerd rant ahead. *SPOILERS*

• Wolverine loses his healing factor (sort of), so every time he pops his claws out he should be screaming in agony and bleeding profusely. That, and he'd be exhausted from lugging around several hundred pounds of adamantium all day.
• Why don't Wolverine's adamantium claws go through those ninja swords like a hot knife through butter?
• If Wolverine's memory is scrambled from his Weapon X days, how the hell would he remember the old dude he saved from Nagasaki?
• WTF is up with that Viper chick? Really. She feels like something out of Origins or Last Stand.

• The giant Silver Samurai/ Iron Man rip off is almost hilarious. Also, what's the deal with Wolverine's bone claws regrowing after the Samurai chops his adamantium one's off? His skeleton is laced with adamantium, how the fuck is bone going to push through and form new claws?

Sorry. That stuff just really bugged the crap out of me. So yeah, the new Wolverine flick is enjoyable if you turn off your brain and try to ignore all the horrible continuity flaws. Jackman is good, blah blah. At this point, these X-Men flicks are beyond saving. The after credits Days of Future Past tie in is supposed to get everyone pumped and redeem the franchise...but I've learned not to get my hopes up anymore. Please Disney, make nice with Fox and buy back the X-Men rights so Marvel can do these films right. Pleeeeeeease.