The Wolverine: Jackson Kicks the Sushit Out of Japan.

Marvel's snarling anti-hero is back with aplomb. 

The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman's highly anticipated Japan based action/drama, was on today's menu and the result was a little bit like japans signature dish; tasty but hardly filling. 

Considering the film concerns a very angry, very hairy man who breaks more bones than he does sweat, The Wolverine actually finds a decent balance between action and drama.

Between the small talk and the punches there are some genuine moments where Jackman gets to flex his thesp-muscles. The fantastic opening scene with the bear means the audience can't help but be emotionally invested from the get-go. The Wolverine, arguably, gets it right where a lot of comic book films, including this summers Man of Steel, falter. 

Overall, there is a great pace to the film and the scenes where people aren't being torn from limb to limb do not look like they were slapped in there simply to provide rest-bite. By and large, this is down to Jackman's presence as a lead man. It's to his credit that he can keep the audience interested in a character who is actually very one dimensional on the surface. 

Unlike other super heroes, such as Iron man, even Wolverine's punchy comic one liners are carried out under that signature scowl, his facade refuses to change, yet Jackman still finds ways to subtly differentiate these moments in his performance. It might just be a matter of the Aussie raising a singular eyebrow, or the manner in which he recovers from a thorough beating. Either way you can see this is a man who has fully inhabited the character.

The rest of the cast remain reletively untested, Rila Fukushima is a watchable sidekick as Yukio and there are some moments between Tao Okamoto (as Mariko) and Jackson that do well to avoid being overly cringey. The rest of the faces get lost in the action sequences, and there are times when you're not quite sure whose fighting who and for what particular reason. 

This is where The Wolverine suffers. It weaves more yarn than it needs to. The plot is made to appear complex but no part of the end result is. Yakuza vs Samurai, dad vs daughter, politician vs window pane and everyone vs poor Logan. It's a melting pot where motives are never fully explored. 

Then, there are things that are also undercooked.

The Viper, played by Svetlana Khodchenkova, for instance comes and goes with no lasting effect. Her character is reminiscent of Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy and after a few encounters she becomes somewhat irritating. Her back story is about as shallow as a puddle. We don't care about her character because we don't know her thus her credentials are like "eh?". 

In fact, the stories penultimate scenes run dangerously close to cancelling out the previous hour and a half's good work at times. This is because there are brief spells when you feel like calling bullshit. The film often feels like a well rehearsed trick. The action is lean, Jackman's acting is on point, so you just go along with it. However, give yourself the time to think a lot comes into question. 

Mangold's film just about pips Tokyo Drift as my favorite Japan based summer blockbuster. The seemingly complex family feud soon crumbles away and ultimately leaves us with a Repunzel in the tower type narrative but Jackson's convincing performance and the healthy dose of claws-smashing-jaws action papers over the cracks for the most part. 

The slickness of the stunts and the CGI impresses with this latest X outing certainly cranking it up on the brutal scale. However, the narrative becomes a moo point after a while, limiting the satisfaction somewhat. 

*** 1/2 stars.