If you're looking forward to a film about a North American weasel or a fullback from the University of Michigan, look elsewhere. However, unless you've been on a meditative retreat for the last decade and a half, you doubtless already know that "The Wolverine" is another installment in the ongoing "X-Men" franchise, with Hugh Jackman assaying the title role for the sixth time.
2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" showed us the young Wolverine/Logan; the new film shows us the oldest Wolverine yet. He may look 40ish, but he's actually a very well-preserved 150? 175? (Who's counting?) Now — by which we mean "after the events of "X-Men: Last Stand" — his longevity is beginning to take its spiritual toll. He's retired to become a hermit, living among the bears and weasels in the forest, and questioning the long-term — very long-term — wisdom of immortality.
His solitude is interrupted by the pushy but adorable Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a redheaded pixie who works for Lord Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), head of Japan's biggest company. It seems that, back in 1945, Logan — then a mere stripling of roughly 105 — saved the young Yashida from the Nagasaki A-bomb. Now Yashida is at death's door, and he has dispatched Yukio to bring Logan to Tokyo, allegedly for a final farewell.