I was complaining to my friend GI Joe, that I had not given us enough time to get popcorn before going into the theater when a sense of self-consciousness hit me. Dana White, president of the UFC, and Matt Hughes, former UFC champion and hall of famer, were directly in front of me. I stared at them as we all walked into The Wolverine together. Apparently I share something in common with world famous tough guys. Beyond being tough that is.

Having listened to Joe Rogan, who is the color commentator for UFC fights, attack Kung-Fu and Tai-Kwon-Do as crap for real life fights, I was very curious what an educated fighting professional would think of the latest Wolverine movie, being set in Japan with all its martial arts. Can they take time from their actual world of actually beating people up with actual proven methodology to the world of a perpetually healing animal like human, hanging out with a bunch of kendo experts that probably have no fighting value outside of a movie.

Luckily The Wolverine doesn’t know Dana White is in the audience and keeps itself focused on being an all style points experience. It looks great when CGI is not involved. Director James Mangold  and his camera man compose some wonderfully colorful shots. The action is usually fun. But the CGI moments can be distracting. Still, let it not be said though that Hugh Jackman isn’t amazing at playing Wolverine. Cause he is.

I take my roles very seriously.

And if you know anything about his five other depictions of this character, then you will not be disappointed in the least. He brings the loner, angry, but sympathetic character to absolute life despite the fact the surroundings may be lack luster. At the top of the movie we find him living the loner life in the woods, communing with bears, until mysterious Yukio (Rila Fukushima) comes calling, complete with butt kicking Japanese sword skills, and a message for The Wolverine to come back to Japan to visit a dying friend he once saved back in WWII.

This dying friend is named Yoshida (Hal Yamanouchi) and he makes an offer to trade Wolverine’s infinite health for Yoshida’s impending death. A tempting possibility that Wolverine gives about 9 seconds of thought before turning down. Yoshida’s daughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), her angry dad, and a less than trustworthy doctor factor in as Wolverine sticks around to attend the funeral, prevent a thousand attempts to kill Mariko, and generally continue in full bad ass form despite somehow mysteriously losing his healing ability even after turning down Yoshida.

The plot quickly gets overly complicated and hard to follow. Suffice it to say Mariko and Wolverine fall for each other. The relationship gets off to a great start as he prevents her suicide attempt before even saying hi. It then launches into the next gear when Wolverine silently protects Mariko from would be assassins on a bullet train. It’s possibly my favorite sequence in the film. A taught, grip your seat kind of fight on top of a train going 200 miles per hour. Even though the digital effects are apparent, the sound design and concept are fascinating and really fun. But then the film starts to take a nose dive. Replacing the action are a set of extended romance scenes where Mariko speaks in metaphorical stories of the past about topics we don’t care about, but somehow hold great meaning today and somehow help rid The Wolverine of his night terrors, where he talks to his dead love, Jean Grey.

This arcade is better to listen to than your metaphors.

I think I’m biased against Japanese cultural influence in films. I’ve just noticed a pattern over the years, so take this for what it’s worth. While I watch various different things, I often find myself bored or frustrated by the long silences and yawn worthy metaphors about grasshoppers and birds that ate certain foods, and whatever other story that is supposed to have meaning in the moment.

That is what I don’t like. Instead, talk about the now. Discuss how things are meaningful to you currently. Don’t make me do all the work interpreting your perceived meaning of how you live your life based on some story you heard in your past that is irrelevant to me.  And yet, despite how slow and boring I found that stuff to be, it still wasn’t long enough to give it any real meaning or make me believe Wolverine actually could fall in love with Mariko. Unfortunately, no sooner could I complain about all of this lovey love mushy mush, when the film spins on it’s axis into stern faced,

Ask me if I like story telling.

crazy final boss fight land. Mariko gets kidnapped and The Wolverine goes after her in a long sequence involving poisons, a million arrows, a secret house, big robot stuff, and a surprise twist that involves yet more stuff I can’t talk about except to say I thought to myself  “that’s quite the contraption you expect me to believe in the precision of.”

GI Joe explained to me that for fan boys of The Wolverine, this film covered about six months of the most popular story line in the comics and it was like a highlight reel to make the super fans all happy.

On it’s  surface, that sounds like a bad idea of over stuffing. He said that for people who didn’t follow the comic, this movie would amount to “what the heck?” I am in the second camp. I found the whole Mariko/Wolverine story line nonsensical all throughout the film but after parsing it completely afterwards, things started to come together for me. Meh… too late. It’s The Wolverine, not 2001. I don’t think you’re supposed to walk out of a super hero movie like this needing to discuss the finer points.

I tweeted Dana White for his opinion of the film. He has yet to respond. Maybe we share that as well.

Let me sum up my experience in two sentences. It started strong, went weird, ended stupid. For a movie that’s 126min long, I give it 141min.