‘The Wolverine,’ Hugh Jackman Broods Again

[truebluefan]

Hugh Jackman in fighting form as the title role of “The Wolverine.

Though I sometimes tire of the sufferings of superheroes, I have a permanent soft spot for the Wolverine, the Marvel mutant whose indestructibility causes him endless physical and existential pain. As played by Hugh Jackman through six “X-Men” features (including one about the Wolverine’s origins), he is a shaggy, soulful, perpetually roughed-up character, and a bit of a misfit even among his peers.

“The Wolverine,” directed by James Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “3:10 to Yuma”) and written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank, is also something of an anomaly in the current, unstoppable wave of comic-book-based movies. It has all the requisite special effects and big-ticket action sequences — including a fight on a moving train and a climactic punch-out between the hero and a villain in an oversize metal suit — but it also has an unusually intimate, small-scale feel. Inspired by a series published by Marvel in the 1980s, it has more old-style comic-book atmosphere than “Man of Steel” or “Iron Man 3.” 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.

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