3. Careful Balance Between Character Development And Action
One of
The Wolverine's biggest backlashes was that it didn't provide much action to the hardcore Wolverine purists. To them there was too much back-and-forth talking and scenes with nothing going on at all, when all they wanted to see was Wolverine slice and dice his way through one bad guy after another. In fact, there are six overall fight scenes (including the encounter early on at the bar between Wolverine and the hunters) throughout the film, and they're sprinkled in rather sparingly, except for the climax which holds together two to three of the aforementioned fight scenes. But the majority of the film consists of dialogue between characters that introduce the themes, conflict, and other banter that keeps it entertaining. For some, little action and too much talking is boring and leads to nowhere, especially for a comic book film. But for others, it puts a lot of ambitious ideas and investments on the table and turns into a well-paced, superhero/anti-hero action film which relies on a smart script that balances its character development while introducing some wildly entertaining action sequences all at the same time. The Wolverine draws a well radiated line between how comic book films should be based off a single character and how they should focus on the mind-over-matter substance when avoiding constant mind-numbing action. Since this is the Wolverine, it may be hard to get used to since this is based off a character that was built to deconstruct and disembowel with ease. But when placing him in a world that he seems out of place in, by having him interact with these characters who are at once trusting yet hesitant but become shady, it helps the fans connect to a Wolverine we really haven't seen before in the previous films.
Character development aside, the action is great in
The Wolverine. The first true fight scene at Yashida's funeral is fast-paced and exhilarating, with Wolverine tearing into Yakuza thugs and taking a beating in the process. Not long after is a train sequence that, by all accounts, is one of the most exciting action scenes so far in 2013. On that same token, none of the other fight scenes come close to beating the bullet train sequence, but the action is overall very impressive, and much better to feast upon than Origin's action bits.