THE WOLVERINE

year: 2013 cast: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Famke Janssen rating: **

 By the time Viper, a beautiful blonde vixen with unearthly powers, unleashes a forked tongue, spitting colorful venom on her targets, the entire purpose of having THE WOLVERINE take place in the super-slick modern day Tokyo, resembling a Noirish Ninja thriller, is somewhat diminished – everything seemed so ultra-real beforehand.

And yet, because of her input alone, our hero's having a more difficult time than usual: feeling vulnerable and human in the process. He’s even suffering bad dreams about former lover Jean Gray, obviously meant to tie the other X-MEN films together but seeming like unnecessary (and corny) intrusions.

The plot is very basic: Wolverine is hired to protect the granddaughter of a dying man he saved during the Second World War. She’s targeted by the Asian mob i.e. The Yukuza, leading to fast-paced action scenes, like one atop a speeding bullet train, which, although fun and involving, are wedged between prolonged bouts of filler dialogue and a superfluous romance.

The handsome cinematography resembles a stylistic graphic novel, especially as we journey from the crowded city to a pale moonlight fortress, but the turnout, ultimately revealing the main villain in a fist-pounding finale, is downright anticlimactic: by the end you’ll realize there wasn’t much behind even the most memorable sequences.