Movie Review: The Wolverine

It feels like a lifetime ago when I saw the first Xmen movie.  Hugh Jackman got a huge break when Dougray Scott had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t make it.  What a difference timing makes, eh?  Now, years later, Jackman is the quintessential Wolverine now, there is no other nor any equal.  In this latest iteration, Logan is faced with the same complications he has been before.  Special effects are always a plus in this sort of movie, but it can’t carry it.

The story is not compelling, but Jackman makes every scene pop.  The only reason to see this movie is to see Hugh Jackman deliver yet another amazing performance.  The man becomes Wolverine/Logan in a way that I would never have expected.  The movies are great, but as a comic book fan, I feel like I see him like an old friend.  The Wolverine is like any other superhero character, a name that means more than the actual person is.  The Wolverine movie doesn’t add much, if anything to the lore of the character, but it is worth seeing.

The thing that stuck out for me the most were the short scenes between Hugh Jackman and Famke Janssen, who comes back as Jean Grey for dream sequences.  The scenes were bittersweet and captured the tortured attitude that Wolverine struggles with throughout his life.  This isn’t the big-budget blockbuster I expected, but it is one of the better movies I’ve seen this summer.