YMMV / The Wolverine

• Anti-Climax Boss: The Silver Samurai. Most complaints are about his overhyped feature in the film yet his single fight scene did not last long in the climax. And he's the modern Powered Armor version, to boot.
• Better on DVD: The Blu-Ray Extended Cut adds a lot more blood and violence to the proceedings.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Yukio, Logan's self-proclaimed sidekick, acquired some remarkable popularity amongst the fanbase and movie audiences. Many were disappointed when she disappeared from the franchise after this film and was rebooted as a completely different character.
• Fetish Retardant: Viper attempts to be a Ms. Fanservice, but fails. This was due to a bad wardrobe choice, among other things.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Yukio's vision of Logan holding his heart in his hands is meant to foreshadow him ripping out the nanomachines draining his Healing Factor later in the film, but also his death in Logan holding Laura's hand. Although unplanned when The Wolverine was filmed, James Mangold, who directed both films, confirmed that this was a deliberate Call-Back.
• Improved by the Re-Cut: This film has an Unrated Cut that adds a bit more character development and extends the Wolverine vs Black Clan fight. It is generally preferred over the theatrical cut.
• Moral Event Horizon: The villains go to great lengths for their cause:
  • Shingen puts a hit on his own daughter because his father named Mariko as the sole heir of the zaibatsu. The gang of Yakuzas in his employ are associated with Noburo, the corrupt Minister of Justice and Mariko's (arranged) fiance.
  • Ichiro Yashida fakes his own death to keep himself behind the scenes. He put the zaibatsu in near bankruptcy due to his obsession with Logan's mutant powers. He then uses the armor to steal Logan's healing factor. Harada had been the faithful servant who guarded Mariko, who ended up getting killed by Yashida's madness.
• Narm:
  • Logan jumping over the guy on the bullet train whilst screaming. Try not to laugh.
  • During the climax, Viper chases after Wolverine and Mariko, and hisses as she does so. Both her run and the hiss look and sound ridiculous.
• Older Than They Think: The deleted ending scene of the film is similar to the ending of the Ultimate Wolverine miniseries. In that series, Jimmy Hudson, Wolverine's son who is Not Wearing Tights, gets the famous Wolverine suit for himself. And also there, he would never actually use it.
• Questionable Casting: At first, Svetlana Khodchenkova's casting as Viper got this reaction mostly due to her not being very well-known in the west, as almost all of her prior roles had been in films and TV shows made in her native Russia. After the film's release, however, most critics and audience members seemed to agree that she was badly miscast, with some comparing her performance to Uma Thurman's notorious turn as Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin, and instead of being her breakout role, it ended up torpedoing her Hollywood career right out of the gate.
• The Scrappy: Viper was left as an enormously bitchy Smug Snake with Fetish Retardant. Didn't help her case when Viper's characterization here gives her snake powers.^note (she didn't have any in the comics, as she was originally "Evil Black Widow") As a final punch to the gut, she has absolutely nothing to do with her comic book counterpart, and even her relationships with other characters are dumbed down. Between all of this and Svetlana Khodchenkova's performance in the role coming in for criticism, more than a few fans consider Viper to be the single worst villain in the entire X-Men film series,^note (Well, unless you count Weapon XI, but he's more of a mind-controlled mook than anything else) despite the film itself having an overall quite positive reception.
• Signature Scene: The Stinger, which features the return of Magneto and Professor X.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • It's quite obvious that the train action scene is filmed in front of a green screen.
  • The Silver Samurai suit doesn't look as convincing as it should be, considering how well-rendered armored battle suits in movies like Iron Man are nowadays.
  • While the digital bear at the beginning of the film is somewhat hokey, the practical-effects created bear that appears shortly afterward just screams animatronic.
  • When the Black Clan turns Logan into a Human Pincushion, the arrows in his back often bend at angles that should be impossible if they were really made of wood or metal.
• Strangled by the Red String: Logan gets this twice over:
  • Logan's unresolved feelings for Jean play a major role in his development, which becomes odd when Fridge Logic factors in and viewers realize they never really spent much time together.
  • Logan constantly dreams about Jean Grey and wishes to be with her again yet he shares a few intimate moments with Mariko, who's already engaged to another man at the time and only knows him for a few days. The film noir setting could justify this relationship as a form of comfort for Logan.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Reviews made it one to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While The Wolverine certainly isn't universally loved, most everyone considers it leagues ahead of its predecessor. It can also be considered one to X-Men: The Last Stand, since The Wolverine takes place after Logan was forced to kill Jean Grey.
• Tear Jerker: The scene where Logan kills the bear. The bear literally asks him to put it out of its misery. Imagine Logan reliving the moment when he was forced to kill Jean.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Viewers that heard about the film's setting and initial premise were intrigued by the idea of Logan going to Japan and being trained to be a samurai (similar to Batman Begins and Wolverine's backstory in the comics). This never happens, and the film is mostly just Logan doing what he usually does but in Japan. Logan does end up fighting Shingen who is in Samurai armor, though he just uses his claws. He later fights the Silver Samurai with a sword, though he never uses the sword that Yashida gave to him.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The violence in the film and the usage of two "fucks" is quite questionable for a PG-13 rated superhero movie.
• Win Back the Crowd: The film (mostly) discarded the previous Wolverine film and basically started from spin-off scratch, adapting one of the most famous comic arcs for the character and going for a smaller and more personal scale for the character. The result was far more well-received than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, enough for Fox to kick the tires on Logan with Hugh Jackman and director James Mangold returning.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The outfit that Viper wears during the climax tries to avert Movie Superheroes Wear Black, but ends up proving that there's a very good reason why this series helped popularize that trope in the first place, with the outfit just looking silly, impractical, and seriously out of place next to the more realistic outfits generally worn elsewhere.

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