4. Focusing Strictly On Wolverine
Contrary to what some people might say about
The Wolverine, one of it's biggest strengths is, in fact, taking away the spotlight of the X-Men themselves and putting Wolverine in the limelight instead. The factual evidence that this film dates after
The Last Stand gives the fans a chance to glimpse at Wolverine's struggle as a solo character instead of with a group of mutants who are vastly superior to him, at the same level as him, or are just piss-ant sissies compared to him. With all that aside, the film lets us focus strictly on Wolverine's plight as he fights his own demons and understands what its like to bear the burden of never being able to die a natural death. With only supporting characters who share human abilities (except for Viper) inhibiting his current daily lifestyle, we see a much more diversified and hard-edge Wolverine than before. Instead of being most dangerous when he's vulnerable, it should be him being more dangerous when he's the only one on the playing field. But The Wolverine succeeds at not being a straight-up continuation of the X-Men trilogy, but a stand-alone film taking place within the same universe that further characterizes one of its most hard-nosed SOB's out there. Something that was only hinted at in the first X-Men f
ilm but later discovered in X2 is what was going on in Wolverine's head, where we caught glimpses of his past dealings and glimpses of roads he once took. From that point on it was inevitable that somewhere in the distant future we would get on origin story, but also maybe another piece of story pertaining to the character that was merely all about him and his adventures. With
The Wolverine currently standing as the benchmark Wolverine story, and dealing a tremendous amount of respect towards the subject matter and previous trilogy, the fans got their wish.