"We don't all have claws."
The Wolverine is a much more focused film and story than the wayward X-Men: Origins, and as such it uses its main strength - Hugh Jackman giving 100% - to full advantage. The opening act is a surprisingly sombre and blatant rain-soaked meditation on mortality, but once the first real action sequence kicks in (and not many funerals can boast the yakuza, parkour, martial arts and mutant action), the film mostly maintains a reasonable balance between fights and character beats. The Japanese setting is well-used and consistently attractive, and the 3D is largely superfluous but occasionally handled creatively. Wolverine gets a somewhat sudden and unconvincing new love interest, but the presence of Famke Janssen is very welcome and used well. The overall style is quite mature and respectfully comic-book, apart from the daft finale that borders on Batman and Robin and Superman III. The in--closing-credits teaser scene for the next X-Men movie serves as an apt reminder that whilst Wolverine's Japanese holiday was interesting, our appetites have been whetted for the main event to come.
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