Welcome to the Wolverine movie that everybody barely remembers. It lacks the raw exceptionality of Logan, but also fails two achieve the sheer notoriety of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And you know what? That’s fair. This movie isn’t great, but it’s more due to narrative choices than the sheer structural rot that affected the first Wolverine flick. The film possesses just enough positive qualities to make up for its deficiencies, but not enough to completely overcome them. This is possibly the most adequate superhero film in existence.

Moving Past The Last Stand

The past haunts Logan in this film. He’s discovered that remembrance brings him little solace. A lifetime of regret can break a person, and Logan shoulders the weight of far more than a single lifetime. We pick up Logan’s story in the aftermath of the third X-Men film. Our hero has retreated to the Yukon wilderness, taking up the life of a hermit. He’s burdened with regret over what he did to Jean Grey, to the extent that he hallucinates her presence. Famke Jannsen returns for these scenes, playing a version of Jean twisted by Logan’s own baggage. This Jean reflects Logan’s unreciprocated love for the woman he killed, while also showcasing the self-loathing he carries after killing her.

But Logan lacks the ability to isolate himself for long. He cares too much to stay away when faced with evil men, while also lacking the moral restraint to show them mercy. This inability to truly live in peace ultimately reveals him to those that are looking for him.

However, it’s a young woman named Yukio who confronts Logan, rather than any of the villains one might expect. With that meeting, the Wolverine is whisked away to Japan on a journey that will force him to face down truths he’s been avoiding.

Matters of Life and Death

The Wolverine themes itself around mortality. The entire conflict of the film hinges on one man’s desire to find death and another man’s desire to escape it. That means that the film also, by necessity, explores life.

The film begins in the shadow of one of the single greatest losses of life in human history. In 1945, in a prison camp just outside Nagasaki, a young man named Ichiro Yashida makes a choice to release prisoners rather than let them die. Then, rather than face his death, he seeks to avoid it, and thus comes to be saved by the man who would one day be known as Wolverine. Afterwards, this young man never quite overcomes his fear of death, even into his old age.

In the present, Logan is in a downward spiral. He views his gift of boundless life to be a curse. His arc revolves around him finding a reason to turn away from death. He does so by experiencing a life where mortality is a real risk, while simultaneously rediscovering his fundamental drive to save people. He then must undergo a metaphorical death and resurrection, as his heart stops when he removes the device that impairs his healing factor.