Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

My good friend John Paul introduced me to the X-Men in the early 1980’s while we were in middle school. I was already an avid comic book fan that read Amazing Spider-man, New Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes, and the Justice League. I instantly fell in love with the great characters in X-Men. The mysterious wild man, Wolverine, was the cornerstone of those fabulous heroes.

The first X-Men movie renewed my faith that comic books could be made into good adaptations. The second X-Men movie exceeded my expectations and told a good story while introducing us to some of the better known X-Men characters. My hopes were dashed with the third movie when they tried to combine two of the best known X-Men stories but not they were not faithful enough to either story and focused on special effects instead of smart writing. My hope with X-Men Origins: Wolverine was that this movie could turn the X-Men brand of movies back to pre X-3 but my expectations were for a suckfest of a movie. Yet I paid my $10 to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine on opening night.

About this Movie:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine begins with Logan, Wolverine, as a small child that is sickly in 1840. We quickly learn about family issues that cause young Logan discover his powers and to run off with his older half brother. Both of the boys are blessed with healing factors that allow them to age extremely slowly after adulthood. The boys find that they are tailor made for war with their feral instincts and healing abilities through out the decades of their life. After some time, Logan leaves the life of violence and war for the life of a lumberjack. After tragedy in Logan’s life, he finds his way back to the life of violence and revenge which subjected him to experimentation that gave him the adamantium laced skeleton and claws. The just of the movie is a simple plot of a man that wants to live his life out in peace after he discovers the horrible things he is capable of but is thrust back into a life of violence for revenge.

What I liked about this Movie:

I really like Hugh Jackman as Logan. After three X-Men movies, he has the character and mannerisms of Wolverine. I can not imagine anyone else playing this role.

This movie did a fairly good job of telling the origin to the mysterious Wolverine. Even though some of the details were changed, I believe it gave enough background for most casual X-Men followers to have a better understanding of the character and his motivation. It also explained Logan’s memory loss that plagued him for years in the comics and for three movies.

This movie was a fun movie to start off the summer popcorn movie watching. There was a lot of action and special effects while yet still having a plot and some character development. This movie will not cause you to contemplate the meaning of life but it will entertain you if you go in expecting a typical comic book movie.


What I did not Like:

This movie tried to introduce too many other characters. They brought in other X-Men characters such as Cyclops, Gambit, Emma Frost, the Blog, and many more. There was no time to explore any of these characters. It was pointless to introduce these characters and then essentially ignore most of them. Comic book movies often fail when they introduce too many bad guys but never develop them (Batman and Robin, Spiderman 3, and many more examples) but this movie had a similar problem with introducing to many super characters in general. This movie needed to stick with Wolverine, Sabertooth, Sliverfox, and Stryker.

I had a problem with Gambit and most things about him in this movie. Firstly, where was his Cajun accent? After the fantastic X-Men cartoon of the 90’s, it is hard not to expect a thick Cajun accent but it did not exist in this movie. The core of Gambit is rouge and a thief that becomes a reluctant hero but I really did not get that feel from this character at all.

Don’t even get me started on my issues with the character of Wade Wilson/ Deadpool character.

It is hard to love this Wolverine movie when we have been exposed to great superhero movies over the last year with Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen. With the greatness of those movies in our minds, it is hard to lay down the hopes that this movie would completely rock. It did not rock but it was good for a superhero movie.


My Review:

I liked this movie and will probably buy it on DVD but I did not love it as I had hoped. But it was not as bad as I feared it might be. It was a fun movie that was worth my money but not one that I will treasure for ever. It is a must see in the movie theatre for the action sequences.


My Grade: B

Other Reviews
IMDB User Rating: 6.8 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 36% - Rotten Movie (average 5.1 out of 10)
Rotten Tomatoes Community:64% Fresh (average 6.3 out of 10)
Rebecca Murray: B-
Movies Online: Michael: 8 out of 10 Stars
Roger Ebert: 2 Stars out of 4
Real Movie News: 3.0 Stars out of 5.0