The Wolverine 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Hugh Jackman doesn't sing in The Wolverine. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The idea of Wolverine fighting off waves of yakuza and ninjas amid shoji screens is tantalizing, but Mangold bungles the staging and cuts so fast that you can't ever savor their silhouettes. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Instead of expounding a tedious origin story or staging an epic battle for apocalyptic stakes, "The Wolverine" focuses on a specific and self-contained adventure in a richly imagined place. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Cliches seep into what could have been a fascinating glimpse into a multifaceted character. Still, this X-Men spinoff is a marked improvement over 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: "The Wolverine" just might be the best comic-book-based superhero epic since Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises." Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Though Wolvie comes across a bit world-weary and battle-worn by now, Jackman is in top form, taking the opportunity to test the character's physical and emotional extremes. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: It doesn't payoff prior installments or set up future ones, but seems to exist almost out of time, for the simple, quaint purpose of pitting its iconic mutant superhero against samurais, ninjas, and vicious yakuza thugs. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's a good effort. Just not an entirely successful one. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: At this point [Jackman] could play the role in his sleep - but he doesn't, and the nuances he and director Mangold bring to the character lift this enterprise up from the usual blockbuster-sequel fare. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: "The Wolverine" dispatches its hero to Japan to grapple with a sinister criminal element and his own virtual immortality. For the uninitiated, the scene shift is surprising - and an effective way of dramatizing and accentuating the hero's dual nature. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: It may be a streamlined, 21st-century take on the Frankenstein story, but it's not an improvement; for a 3D adventure, this noisy action fantasy falls as flat as cardboard. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "The Wolverine" won't change anybody's mind about the character, or about what Jackman can do with it. It's simply a more focused scenario than usual, full of violence done up with a little more coherence and visceral impact than usual. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Mangold front-loads the action, but near the end there's a first-rate fight atop a bullet train between Wolverine/Logan and some especially pesky ninjas. It puts the train fights in the recent The Lone Ranger to shame. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: The Wolverine represents a strain of faux gravitas that squeezes nearly all the fun out of blockbuster moviemaking. Here we have multimillion-dollar proof that slow and unsure can be just as dull as hyperkinetic chaos. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Too many ninjas, too few mutants. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: A Wolverine tale that's more loaded with psychological questions (his immortality is seen as a curse) and makes the haunted character more interesting. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: In the mood for a giant cup of "who cares?" Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Getting [Wolverine] to the movie's above-average finale required three writers - Christopher McQuarrie, Mark Bomback, and Scott Frank - to pad the plot. Read more

Megan Lehmann, Hollywood Reporter: Until a third act that collapses in a harebrained heap, the director largely succeeds in keeping the more cartoonish aspects at bay, roughing up the surface with organically staged fight scenes and, crucially, raising the stakes. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: "The Wolverine" is an erratic affair, more lumbering than compelling, an ambitious film with its share of effective moments that stubbornly refuses to catch fire. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: For a sturdy 90 minutes, one of Marvel comic's most intriguing creations is served well by director James Mangold's "The Wolverine." Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Just as comic-book movie fatigue was starting to set in, along comes The Wolverine to revive a moribund summer of superheroes. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Like most superhero films, "The Wolverine" depends mostly on sheer mechanics -- both in front of and behind the camera -- and on that level it's a resounding success. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: It's a relief to come across a blockbuster that finds a location and stays there, rather than hopping desperately from one place to the next ... Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "The Wolverine" is the best superhero film since "The Avengers" - maybe even since "The Dark Knight." Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: A handful of bold ideas brought down by the need to regress to a blander, more box-office-friendly middle ground. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: There's the usual villain problem (too many of them -- and none of them memorable) and a tone that may take parents of young Wolverine fans by surprise. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: There's teeming bombast and great gushers of villainy, but we've seen it all before and we'll see it all again, probably next week. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: It has a more absorbing story and intriguing sensibility than Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel, and even when its action falters, this film is more original and exotic. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Although The Wolverine eventually falls back on a comic-book formula and CG effects (the climactic face-off between Logan and a giant silver warriorlike thing is totally generic), Mangold and his team find time to explore more nuanced realms ... Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Finally - a superhero movie that doesn't feel like every other superhero movie. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: This is a serious, sometimes dark and deliberately paced story. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: Director James Mangold's film features some breathtakingly suspenseful action sequences, exquisite production and costume design and colorful characters, some of whom register more powerfully than others. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Hugh Jackman, in his sixth time up as Wolverine, still has the juice. This pissed-off man of Adamantium claws is stalking new ground (Japan), and his fight with yakuza on top of Tokyo's speeding bullet train is a wowser. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Taken on its own terms "The Wolverine" is the cleanest, least pretentious and most satisfying superhero movie of the summer. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Somewhere along the line somebody must have had a crazy idea, that The Wolverine required a decent script, and shouldn't rely only on action, audience goodwill and the sight of Hugh Jackman with his shirt off. The team delivers with this one. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film is a misconceived misfire, over-solemn for its first two acts and overstuffed with BLAM! POW! TEDIUM! at the climax. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A movie so unspectacular and meaningless it might be mistaken for an old episode of "The Incredible Hulk." Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: It restores the tarnished lustre to this most fan-beloved of Marvel characters by doing precisely what Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's near-sacred 1982 run did: It pumps some feeling into the guy along with his muscles and steel talons. Read more

Raju Mudhar, Toronto Star: It's a credit to the production team that these elements somehow work, with the movie at its best as a superhero/Asian crime drama mash-up. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Moments in The Wolverine rank among both the franchise's best and worst, but there's enough in the positive column to make the movie a must for fans and entertaining viewing for casual observers. Read more

Guy Lodge, Time Out: It's the stuff of Saturday-morning cartoons, but Mangold - who, as in the appalling 'Knight and Day', edits all action sequences on the shaky frappe setting - hasn't the visual pop or lightness of touch to make it bounce. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Too quickly the random fights pile up -- so many yakuza thugs who forgot to wear chain mail that morning -- and you yearn for the film that might have been. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The Wolverine -- despite being an improvement on Gavin Hood's muddled 2009 X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- isn't worthy of Jackman's gifts. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: A refreshing summer cocktail of action-movie staples, The Wolverine combines the bracingly adult flavor of everyone's favorite mutant antihero with the fizzy effervescence of several mixers from the cabinet of Japanese genre cinema. Read more