A solid Wolverine solo story spoiled by a stupid ending.  By taking Wolvie out of his element and into modern Japan the movie starts strongly with some interesting scenarios and some pretty exciting action (if a bit tidy even by PG-13 standards).  After a slow but tolerable second act, though, the movie implodes in a mess of Hollywood excess and stupidity, including an incredibly misguided take on a classic villain, a ridiculous villainess, some awkward copycat scenes of movies ranging from The Matrix to The Lord of the Rings, and about three inexplicable and unnecessary story turns too many.

Altogether it's still far more watchable than the first Wolverine movie but could have been so much better. The Blu-ray release reportedly will offer an unrated edit; I'd recommend waiting to see if that version at least has a little more bite.
3/5 stars

I might post some spoiler-tagged discussion later as there are some issues in the third act I felt could have so easily been avoided. As an X-Men fan I'm more disappointed than usual with this one because it started with so much promise.

It was nice seeing some familiar Tokyo locales though.

I was so confused/disappointed by the ending that I think I'd give it 2 stars total.  Which is about as many stars as I'd give the first one.  They totally botched the entire Silver Samurai story and everything.  Just awful.

I was always secretly hoping for a Gambit Origins or large role in any of the X-Men but after this butchering I don't really want to see it.

I guess the two minute thing post-credits is setting up the next X-Men movie to be about the Sentinel arc?  It's going to be really disappointing if they do that without Gambit or a mature Scott Summers.

I think they've finally jumped the shark and are just going to put out anything to try to capitalize on this whole popular nerddom bullshit that's going around.

Tidy?  Really?  I was actually a little stunned by some of the violent, graphic shots this movie showed off.  I certainly thought they were pushing the PG-13 standards, something I'm glad they went with for a movie about Wolverine going up against a crap ton of bladed weaponry.

Hm I wonder if we watched the same movie.   I recall a couple of shots that really showed the type of visceral action you would expect of Wolverine but other than that I remember the camera often cutting away after a slash or what not before you saw the full effects of it.  Part of this may just be director James Mangold's quick-cut style but still it felt like he was intentionally toning down the effect of the violence with his editing.

It'll be interesting to see the unrated edit and compare.  Just wish they'd fix the final act while they're making it.

So now that the handy new spoiler tag is implemented I'll mention what I thought brought down the movie in the third act...

First of all they completely screwed up the Silver Samurai character.  Why you would cast a bad-ass actor like Hiroyuki Sanada (think Last Samurai) and have him go out like a chump, using an elderly dude in cheesy, robot-looking CGI as a main adversary for Wolverine instead is beyond me.  Also I don't like how every action scene in the third act basically involved Wolverine getting whupped.  Yes we all know he has a healing factor but where is the action and drama when he just gets beat down and down without dishing anything back. Dumb.

One of the biggest scenes that was apparently cut down was when...... Harada's ninja clan peppers Wolverine with the poison-tipped arrows before capturing him in the village.  That was the conclusion of what was supposed to be this huge, minutes-long battle -- and a sequence that would have really shown off Logan's prowess in a fight.  It'll supposedly make its way back into the unrated cut