Let's be honest: X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not the terrible movie most people make it out to be. Yes, the 2009 action film from Tsotsi director Gavin Hood was nowhere near as good as Bryan Singer’s X-Men or X2: X-Men United. Yes, its story, deviating wildly from the comic book canon, was flawed. The shoddy CGI, the disrespect shown to such fan-favorite characters as Gambit and Deadpool ... it all added up to a jumbled result that turned off mainstream viewers and angered hardcore fans. Still, the first X-Men spin-off succeeded in being an exciting action film, if you could ignore the fact that everything that was great about the popular superhero team’s universe was nowhere to be found.And as little as four years ago, that was the standard for comic book superhero movies: pump out any old thing, because the real fans will blindly come. Back when Marvel Comics sold the film rights of their most popular titles (including The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) to major studios such as 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures, the fans were often treated as mindless sheep rather than discriminating customers. The studios would simplify or cut characters and completely rearrange history in an effort to get the largest amount of money from their audiences. And considering the high grosses for even the reviled X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3, it was hard to argue with their approach. At least, until Marvel launched their “Phase One” series of movies. Unlike the projects farmed out to other production companies, Marvel Studios actually seemed to take their established fan base into account when they made their films, remaining true to what made the characters and stories so revered in the first place. And that respect paid for itself tenfold with the unprecedented success of many of the Phase One properties, such as the Iron Man trilogy and The Avengers. The word was out: respect your base and you'll see real audience turnout.Fox at least seems to get the message. The Wolverine - their follow-up to the well-received X-Men First Class - makes up for almost all the mistakes that plagued Origins and Last Stand. Based on a popular comic book arc that sees former X-Man Logan (Hugh Jackman) – also known as Wolverine – travel to Japan, the film shows us the franchise’s most popular hero as a solder suffering from the guilt of his actions during The Last Stand, in which he killed the woman he loved (Famke Janssen's Jean Grey, who appears to him in dreams in this new movie) to save the planet. Now he’s a drifter, cursed to live forever (due to his mutant healing factor) with the death and destruction he has caused. He is eventually tracked down by assassin Yukio (Rila Fukushima) with a message from the dying Ichiro Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), a business magnate whom Logan saved from the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki in World War II. Yashida has a proposition for the Wolverine: as a favor for saving his life, he offers to take away Logan’s healing factor, making him normal and allowing him to have the life – and death – he desires. Soon, our hero is caught up in a power struggle between Yashida’s son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto), and a mysterious doctor (Svetlana Khodchenkova) who threatens to turn the Wolverine into a mortal – and helpless – victim.Hugh Jackman is still front-and-center (and since he’s playing the most popular character in the X-Men universe, that’s okay), but what differentiates The Wolverine from its spin-off predecessor is the richness of the characters that director James Mangold surrounds him with. Each character has depth behind their everyday existence, and they thankfully refrain from revealing their whole motives in just one scene or moment. Character development is sewn throughout the story, a samurai tale that appears squarely in Mangold’s range. After all, the director might be better known for Walk the Line, but his remake of 3:10 to Yuma is one of the best modern westerns, essentially based on samurai flicks like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. This reinforces his natural storytelling, and he also makes excellent use of his actors, from veterans like Sanada (The Last Samurai, Sunshine), Yamanouchi and Will Yun Lee (from last year’s Red Dawn) to newcomers Okamoto and Fukushima, Japanese models who put in surprisingly strong performances in their English-speaking debuts. The cast is not without weaknesses, with the lamest of the bunch Khodchenkova, whose character is bland and just a little silly, even for a comic book-inspired villain. Jackman, meanwhile, reminds us why he makes such a good action hero, clipping off one-liners and taking great pains to make those fight scenes look as good as possible. The film and his complex character call for Jackman to stretch the boundaries of what it means to be a leading male in an action movie, and since (as crowds learned in Les Miserables) he is no one-trick pony, we all know he can handle the demands. His obvious affinity for the character of Wolverine makes it all look easy.But character alone can't sustain an action film. The rest is the special effects department’s job. And while not every movie can be Pacific Rim when it comes to eye candy, The Wolverine ups the stakes from Origins (and in fact most of the X-predecessors) with eye-popping visuals and a great Samurai-inspired musical score by Marco Beltrami. There is a little too much bustle in the first half, where near-constant fight scenes threaten to derail character development; the fight between Logan and Yakuza inside and atop a speeding bullet train has a little too much happening and is a bit too blurry to fully appreciate, and comes too soon after another heavy action sequence. The second half rights the ship, however, with a finale worthy of Logan’s high-octane journey. It’s apparent how well Mangold paces the story and action and how nicely it all fits into a two-hour slab of entertainment, taking it in fact a step above your average summer popcorn flick.The Wolverine is not only a great action film to see this summer, but arguably the best X-Men movie since 2003’s X2, and certainly what Wolverine fans had been hoping Origins would be. It even serves as an excellent middle ground between 2011’s prequel First Class and next year’s highly-anticipated Days of Future Past, thanks to the now-obligatory post-credits scene that sets up the next installment. Here, Mangold takes everything that is perfect about the franchise, character and universe that 20th Century Fox leased from Marvel so many years ago and infuses it into a film that is will appeal to most comic fans while also being able to hold the collective attentions of more mainstream audiences. It’s a unique look at the Wolverine universe, and proof that listening to and respecting your fans can produce fun, exciting experiences for everybody.John C. Anderson is a freelance writer and movie enthusiast living in Boston. His film reviews can be found at Hello, Mr. Anderson (http://latestissue.blogspot.com)