Wolverine comes to Japan to meet an old friend whose life he saved years ago, and gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving yakuza and mutants.Wolverine comes to Japan to meet an old friend whose life he saved years ago, and gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving yakuza and mutants.Wolverine comes to Japan to meet an old friend whose life he saved years ago, and gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving yakuza and mutants.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 11 nominations
Hal Yamanouchi
- Yashida
- (as Haruhiko Yamanouchi)
Takao Kinoshita
- Fruit Cart Vendor
- (as Takao Kimoshita)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- Trivia(at around 1h 3 mins) Young Yashida gives Wolverine a samurai sword with six Kanji letters engraved on it. These kanji read, "Never Died, Never Aged, Never Destroyed." This is appropriate for Wolverine.
- Goofs(at around 4 mins) Explosions do not enter blind cavities like the well shown. Even a shallow ditch is sufficient protection from a blast wave. Blind tunnels are used in mines to protect workers from explosions.
- Crazy creditsSPOILER: There is a scene in the closing credits: as Wolverine enters an airport security check, he comes face to face with Magneto and Professor X, who request his assistance for a new threat to mutants. This leads into X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
- Alternate versionsAlso available in a 3D version.
- ConnectionsEdited into X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
- SoundtracksRequiem KV 626 - Sequentia Rex Tremendae
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Courtesy of Crucial Music Corporation
Featured review
Worthy successor
I didn't much care for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman still was, and always will be, a brilliant Wolverine, but the other characters felt lackluster, the villain was weak and the storyline didn't fit well with the other X-Men movies. It didn't have the same feel.
For some time it seemed that the poor critical performances of both that and X-Men 3 would mean there would be no more movies with Wolverine in them, at least in a leading role. Luckily, the film makers decided to do one more and if this particular movie is going to be the last one, I for one can move on happy with what I got.
The Wolverine is a movie that works both as a continuation of the X-Men storyline, as well as a standalone movie. The focus is kept heavily on Hugh Jackman, which works for the movie's advantage. There are some callbacks to the events of the trilogy, but as a whole I think this film could have worked just as well without them, if not better, as they are a bit distracting from time to time. But most of the time the focus is on where it should be. In this movie Logan travels to Japan in order to meet an old acquaintance, who wants to settle old scores before his demise. In Japan we get some gorgeous scenery, nice atmosphere, intriguing settings, believable characters, all that good stuff.
I especially liked Tao Okamoto's character Mariko, the granddaughter of Wolverine's old friend. Jackman and Okamoto have brilliant chemistry together and when the movie slows down during the second act to give them time to simply interact with one another, it feels justified. Usually that kind of slowing down in an action movie feels boring and unneeded, even sappy, but here it works because the actors have the skills to pull it off. Which is a great thing, because it gives the movie more depth and we get a chance to know Wolverine in a new way that the Origins movie tried to reach, but never could because of its lack of emotional maturity.
Unfortunately this film has one major flaw and that is the unbelievably weak villain, known as Viper. Her actress, Svetlana Khodchenkova, just doesn't have the screen presence or acting skills to give the character any memorable attributes. She merely stands there, struts around in her skintight suit and spouts the dialogue. That's it. Sure part of that is poor writing, but it's still rather jarring because the two main protagonists are so damn good. If only the villain had been as good, this could easily have been one of the best Marvel movies yet made.
As it is, it's still fine. The two main characters are very good, most of the side characters do a good job as well, the action works wonderfully, the Japanese setting gives the film a nice coating of majesty and even the story, while nothing that extraordinary, functions well enough for us to enjoy it. The villain is weak, very weak in fact, which keeps the film from being great, but you can overlook it and focus on the good stuff.
For some time it seemed that the poor critical performances of both that and X-Men 3 would mean there would be no more movies with Wolverine in them, at least in a leading role. Luckily, the film makers decided to do one more and if this particular movie is going to be the last one, I for one can move on happy with what I got.
The Wolverine is a movie that works both as a continuation of the X-Men storyline, as well as a standalone movie. The focus is kept heavily on Hugh Jackman, which works for the movie's advantage. There are some callbacks to the events of the trilogy, but as a whole I think this film could have worked just as well without them, if not better, as they are a bit distracting from time to time. But most of the time the focus is on where it should be. In this movie Logan travels to Japan in order to meet an old acquaintance, who wants to settle old scores before his demise. In Japan we get some gorgeous scenery, nice atmosphere, intriguing settings, believable characters, all that good stuff.
I especially liked Tao Okamoto's character Mariko, the granddaughter of Wolverine's old friend. Jackman and Okamoto have brilliant chemistry together and when the movie slows down during the second act to give them time to simply interact with one another, it feels justified. Usually that kind of slowing down in an action movie feels boring and unneeded, even sappy, but here it works because the actors have the skills to pull it off. Which is a great thing, because it gives the movie more depth and we get a chance to know Wolverine in a new way that the Origins movie tried to reach, but never could because of its lack of emotional maturity.
Unfortunately this film has one major flaw and that is the unbelievably weak villain, known as Viper. Her actress, Svetlana Khodchenkova, just doesn't have the screen presence or acting skills to give the character any memorable attributes. She merely stands there, struts around in her skintight suit and spouts the dialogue. That's it. Sure part of that is poor writing, but it's still rather jarring because the two main protagonists are so damn good. If only the villain had been as good, this could easily have been one of the best Marvel movies yet made.
As it is, it's still fine. The two main characters are very good, most of the side characters do a good job as well, the action works wonderfully, the Japanese setting gives the film a nice coating of majesty and even the story, while nothing that extraordinary, functions well enough for us to enjoy it. The villain is weak, very weak in fact, which keeps the film from being great, but you can overlook it and focus on the good stuff.
helpful•4322
- Vartiainen
- Feb 14, 2014
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Wolverine 2
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $120,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $132,556,852
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $53,113,752
- Jul 28, 2013
- Gross worldwide
- $414,828,246
- Runtime2 hours 6 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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