Moviebanta

I loved watching this film but it is kind of a hot mess. It takes on so much that it can't quite give anything it's full attention and, as a result, chinks in the armour do appear. Underdeveloped characters and plot lines mixed with story conveniences, pacing issues and sloppy exposition are peppered in throughout the film's two hour runtime. However, these flaws are likely just consequences of the filmmaker's completely understandable decision to prioritise humour and great moments above all else. They do certainly try to add some emotional stakes and weight to proceedings but it's so fleeting it all just comes off as a bit half-baked. You can't really blame the writers for rushing the story in order to get back to the fun stuff when the fun stuff is this good. Bloody action, surprising character appearances, an excellent soundtrack, countless one-liners and the most meta humour we've ever seen onscreen - it truly is great stuff. If you were to see an hour long highlights reel of the film's best moments before you saw them stitched together in the final product you'd swear it was the greatest superhero film of all time but, unfortunately, moments don't make a movie and the film those countless great moments are in sometimes fails to live up to the sum of its parts. Fortunately, we do find some focus at around the halfway point when the film really prioritises its greatest strength and that is the pairing of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine with Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool. Their chemistry is thoroughly entertaining and well worth pulling Jackman out of superhero retirement to bring to the big screen. Of course there's plenty of cameos, easter eggs and surprises for fans but, surprisingly, the filmmakers were more taken with dusting off the old Fox/Marvel universe and giving it a proper send off than playing with their shiny new MCU toys. At times the film really does play out like Reynolds and director Shawn Levy emptied their Marvel toy chest onto their bedroom floor and smashed them together for two hours but it's clear they had a great time doing it and that joyous feeling definitely rubs off on the audience. It was also refreshing to see a Marvel film truly have fun with the multiverse tool after multiple attempts have criminally underused the concept. Overall, the film is hilarious, violent, fourth wall shattering and an extremely fun time at the cinema but if you're looking for an emotionally fulfilling superhero story, stick to Jackman's previous Wolvie outing in Logan.

2009's X-men Origins: Wolverine was received negatively by both critics and the majority of the fans of the character. Now the character has a chance to redeem himself with this year's the Wolverine and for the most part he does. This film has really tried to please the fans as it was loosely based on the beloved Japan story line from the comics and it is clear that the film has tried to fix the problems that were complained about in the previous solo Wolverine film. Despite taking place after the events of X-men: The Last Stand this film attempts to distance itself from the rest of the X-men characters and story and focuses solely on the Wolverine character and as a result this film feels very different to all previous X-men films. This allows for the best portrayal of Wolverine's character that we have seen so far and Hugh Jackman also delivers his best performance of the character to date. I really enjoyed the pacing of the film as well because although it was a face paced action film it wasn't afraid to slow things down and develop the characters and the relationships between them. However it never slows down for too long before it picks up the pace with another action scene. The action in this film is also very well done because every sequence is creative and has a purpose so it never feels like the mindless action we've come to expect in big budget summer films. Humour is also used effectively in this film as the writers take advantage of Wolverine's IDGAF attitude. However the film isn't perfect as there is one other mutant character that occasionally seems slightly out of place and some people might find her character a bit too over the top. Also from time to time it does feel like they are playing it too safe to insure that they don't make any of the same mistakes as the last Wolverine film. Overall The Wolverine, although not perfect, is a fun superhero film that gets a lot of things right about what makes the Wolverine character so popular.