Hugh Jackman will potentially always be the best Wolverine, he was Wolverine for many years, starred in countless films as the character and many people often say that Logan is the best “Wolverine” movie or one of the greatest comic book movies adapted from page to live-action.
However, I disagree… quite a lot in fact. I watched Logan as soon as it released, I didn’t get the same excitement I did as when I first watched The Wolverine or Origins.
I personally think that both Origins and The Wolverine delivered some of the best performances by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, not only in terms of fighting, action, or the brooding Logan but also the development of the character.
In Origins, we got to see him go from the bone claws to the adamantium skeleton. We also got to see his history with Sabretooth who was made out to be an important figure in Logan’s life. We got hints of Logan and Sabretooth fighting throughout different wars in history which was also touched upon in The Wolverine when we see Logan as a prisoner of war in Japan when the Atomic Bomb dropped.
This introduction in The Wolverine is probably the most underrated Wolverine scene in the entire history of the character in live-action. We got to see just how powerful his healing factor is when he was severely burnt by the Atomic Bomb and we got to see him heal.
The Wolverine also delivered great action and an even better story. I loved the story in The Wolverine, it’s probably my favorite Wolverine film appearance. The characters introduced were also great, they delivered powerful scenes and the movie even introduced us to the Silver Samurai.
While Logan was decent, and we got to see a version of the “Old Man Logan” story, It wasn’t the best version of it and the movie could have been better. Logan is a very overrated movie and isn’t as great as people make it out to be. We didn’t even get to see Sabretooth, Seeing Logan and Sabretooth either working together or fighting one last time would have been great and would have gone full circle in their history.
While the cinematic of Logan was great, I personally think The Wolverine had a tiny bit better cinematic shots for being released a few years earlier, It showcased so many things in Japan, the city, the gangs, the lightning, the fight scenes were spectacular, even the design of the Silver Samurai was great.
It also showcased Logan without powers when the Silver Samurai severed his Adamantium claws and began stealing his healing factor regaining his youth and we got to see Logan regenerate his bone claws.
I’m not saying that Logan is an entirely bad film, I’m just saying that it’s not the “best comic book movie” or “the greatest Wolverine movie of all time”. It’s good, not great. The Wolverine is miles better in my opinion.
And if I have to say, Hugh Jackman in The Wolverine was probably the closest looking to Wolverine as he has ever been in any of the movies or cameo’s he’s been in. It looked like he was ripped straight from the comic panels in The Wolverine.
Each Wolverine movie had a build into it, Logan was released with next to zero build into it, The Wolverine delivered a movie then Logan was announced and it was like “Oh this is jumping straight to an Old Man Logan Story” which sucked. They should have a build-up to it even more.
It was painful watching him struggle for the entire movie, we missed so much in between the time jump from The Wolverine to Logan, so many things left unanswered which will probably never be answered now.
