Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds

The Plot: The origin (hence the title) of the popular X-Man, Wolverine as he becomes the indestructible menace fighting alongside other mutants to stop a mad military scientist and his own brother Sabretooth.

My two cents: In the first two films of the X-Men franchise, Brian Singer made story and character the highlight of the film. Sure, when it comes to a film about the X-Men, setting aside time for each hero to use their power seems mandatory, but Singer never overdid it. He made films about the X-Men, not about their powers.

Brett Ratner on the other hand did the exact opposite and crammed as many different characters on film as he could to have a spectacle take place, leaving limited time for a plot and characters, even the important ones. What resulted was what I assumed to be the death of the X-Men franchise.

But lo and behold I was wrong when someone decided that biopics needed to be made about specific characters. With X-Men Origins being apart of the title, its safe to assume that after the probable success of Wolverine, there will be more films focusing on other characters. (Can't wait for a film about the kid that changes TV channels with his mind!)

Unfortunately Gavin Hood didn't quite learn from Ratners mistakes and took a film about one character and introduced a bunch of others leaving our clawed hero on the sidelines for portions of the film. Once again time is set aside for every different character to have their little moment to show off and then, for the most part, they are done. It's really a shame because there are some great characters that deserve their own story arcs but probably won't get such treatment, such as fan favorites, Gambit and Deadpool.

Wolverine, as a film, plays out like a video game. About every 15 minutes or so, you have a boss fight with a unique character for very vague reasons, culminating in the final boss fight with the mega mutant. The fights aren't really that spectacular and they are over fairly quick, due to the fact that more powers need to be crammed into the movie.

There is a facsimile of a story that exists underneath all the noise but it's fairly anticlimactic. The ending is about as ho-hum as it gets and leaves me thinking that none of these Origins stories will have satisfying conclusions. What really hurts the story the most is that they are trying to tie it into the universe that Singer has created, rather than starting from scratch and making something that holds itself on its own two legs. I already know what's going to happen, so give me something I don't expect.

Wolverine is a good popcorn flick. There are plenty of explosions and bright lights to stimulate the senses, but for the most part it's claws were a little dull. (And the award for cheesy pun goes to...)

Grade: C-