The Wolverine

Skippable, with one qualification: the post-credits scene is the direct setup for Days of Future Past, and it is ninety seconds long. The film before it is optional.

It is also much better than the 2009 attempt, and for most of its length it is the second-best Wolverine film. James Mangold takes a character who cannot be killed and puts him somewhere his immortality is a burden: Japan, as a guest of a man he saved at Nagasaki, who now wants to buy his healing from him because he is dying and Logan will not stop living.

The first two acts work because the register is small. There is a funeral, a family dispute over an inheritance, a protection job, and an extended sequence on a bullet train that is the best action in the series outside Logan. The film is genuinely interested in grief, with Jean appearing in dreams as a reproach rather than a memory.

The third act collapses into a man in a giant metal suit in a laboratory, which is precisely what the preceding ninety minutes were avoiding. An extended unrated cut adds around twelve minutes and is modestly better. Watch it if Logan interests you and you want the setup.