2009 X-Men origin: Wolverine was a mess; it suffered from too many characters and an incoherent plot. Previous X-Men movies have handled the character well revelling parts of his mysterious back story in flashbacks and exposition. An origin story is just that, taking the character back to the origins and exploring how he became the charter we know. With the back-story out the way how does a second Wolverine movie stand up?
Set some time after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), haunted by the death of Jean Grey, Logan (Hugh Jackman) has dropped the moniker Wolverine and is living a solitary existence in the woods. He is tracked down by a young woman whose employer is keen for him to visit Japan.
A notably better movie than Origins or The Last Stand but it still lacks the magic of the other X-Men movies. The most notable thing about the story is the scale and subtext. While the X-Men movies are concerned with global issues and have social subtext, The Wolverine is concerned with a story more personal to the character and subtext (if there is one) that is more existential. This helps the movie survive on its own merits away from a big franchise. There is enough exposition to allow a newcomer enjoy the movie without being bogged down with the back-story. 
The mutant level is also kept to a minimum with just a couple of other “gifted” characters. These include the villain, Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who like lots of other characters in the movie are based on characters from the comic books. We get a version of Mariko (Tao Okamoto) Yukio (Rila Fukushima) and Silver Samurai, comic book purists may not like them, but they do work within the context of the movie. Viper is well used both orchestrating the henchmen and getting involved with the action herself, although her first appearance in a movie she seems very familiar, coming across as a combination of Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) from Batman & Robin (1997) and Typhoid Mary (Natassia Malthe) from Elektra (2005). As with the comic book character she is based on Viper goes back to the traditions of the early days of the comic book villains she dresses in green. She is interestingly the only character in the movie who dresses in what can be described as a comic book costume. 
The action scenes are well handled when they involve Logan fighting with sword or claws but fall down when CGI gets involved. A case in point is a fight seen on a bullet train, there are elements of it that are really good but others that are ludicrous. This kind of sums the whole film up, some of it works some of it doesn’t. The final showdown could have been better but it does neatly tie up the story and leaves us wanting more. As you would expect for a comic book movie, there is a “stinger” a short way into the credits. Without spoiling it too much I will say it appears to relate to the forthcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). For the first time in an X-Men movie they have managed in the one scene to achieve what the Avengers movies do, creating excitement for the next film.
Although different in tone the movie does fit in with the other movies in the series with one exception: Unless I am missing something, there is a huge continuity error, Logan lost his memory towards the end of Origins (it appears to be 1979), and yet in the present day he appears to have memories of 1945. As mentioned in a previous article, we still have more than 20 years of Logan’s life that is unaccounted for between the end Origins and his first appearance in X-men, so there is lots of space for another stand alone story.
It doesn’t always feel like an X-Men movie and it is flawed, but it is largely a fun and enjoyable. It has its charms and some great moments marks a great improvement on Wolverines other solo outing.
Fandango Groovers Movie Blog 