I was really with James Mangold's The Wolverine...at least at first. It was moody, atmosphere, heavily invested in creating tone and a brooding sense of despair. Even when Wolverine first traveled to Japan, I was with it. It was fun to see Logan bumble around in a country where he was out of his element. But alas, the film trades tone for whiz-bang action in the second half, woefully succumbing to just about every action stereotype in the book. The perfunctory love interests? Check. Jittery action sequences against CGI vomit? Check. Forgettable villains? (Looking at you, Viper.) Check. Hard to follow plot machinations? (Just what the heck was going on with everybody betraying everybody?) Check. It sapped all the life and goodwill from the first half. Now, the more astute of you might notice that I've given this film a worse score than the widely reviled X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). At least that film had its own identity; at least it embraced its comic book roots and all its inherent silliness and spectacle. The Wolverine just feels hollow.
5/10
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