The Wolverine.

No gaming on Thursday. Rick's on holiday and Aidan is not available. A good opportunity to go and see The Wolverine.

The film starts in 1945 and Logan rescues a Yashida, a Japanese soldier who has shown relative kindness, from the effects of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki.This scene owes more to artistic licence than physics, but is the only practical way to deal with the subject in the context of a film.

Years later as a reward Yashida, now the richest businessman in Japan, offers to make Logan mortal again, to allow him death and peace. What follows is a plot of conspiracy and counter conspiracy with Logan caught in the middle, trying to protect Yashida's granddaughter and nominated heiress.

Logan has his powers inhibited, so he can be hurt and feel pain. So he cannot be as gung ho as normal. There are lots of great action scenes that play on this fact. Look out for Viper, another mutant. Logan is forced to run, until he finds out the reason for his loss of powers. Once he has his powers back, he then has to rescue the granddaughter. There are lots more combat scenes before the  final confrontation with the Silver Samurai.

This is a really good film which extends the reach of the X-Men franchise. My only gripe is that I think it is about 15 minutes too long.

It is worth waiting two minutes into the credits as there is a meeting with two old friends which sets up the next X-Men film.