The Wolverine (2013)

"A man who has nightmares every night of his life is in pain.”

I know my 1980s Marvel, more or less. But I admit I never read the Chris Claremont limited series (we true Marvel zombies never use that awful phrase “miniseries; that’s for the Disgruntled Competition) on which this film is based. It makes no difference to how unexpectedly bloody good this film is, though.

The plot is intricate, exciting, James Bond-like and am excuse for loads of great Japanese set pieces, the highlight being a fight atop a bullet train. The direction is superb, with flashbacks of Jean Grey constantly beckoning a weakened Logan towards easeful death. And no cool Japanese trope is left unused. We even get a convincing romance between Logan and Mariko, although no one is getting married on this occasion.

There are continuity questions, of course; how come Logan remembers Nagasaki in 1945 if his memory was wiped at the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine? It’s also odd to see Viper as the villain in a Fox film where, of course, they can’t make any mention of HYDRA. And the use of Silver Samurai is certainly unexpected.  But the film isn’t really about any of that. It’s a superb action film about family and mortality. With ninjas. And possibly the finest film in the X-Men franchise up to this point. This franchise may lack the central quality control and planning of the MCU, but its individual films can sometimes be just as good. And now, it seems, it has the post credits sequences too...