X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: The Review:

Sorry moviegoers, "I'm the best there is at what I do and what I do ain't pretty" is tragically true

If you're looking for a good X-Men movie this summer, boy have I got a title for you: X-Men 2. Already seen it? My are you a quick one; but I suppose it's been on DVD for a while (not to mention the seedier parts of the internet where pirates surf). Well then, maybe you've got some nagging questions leftover from the scene where the villainous Colonel Stryker (Brian Cox in X2, Danny Huston in Wolverine) tries to bargain with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) for his life using promises of stories of everyone’s favorite amnesiac killing machine's mysterious past. Well, in that case I have some more advice for you... head to your local comic book store and pick up Wolverine: Origins. Some things are better left as mysteries, and some movies (and this time I am talking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine) are better off left unwatched.
   
For those still interested, Wolverine begins as a decent Team X movie before descending into a predictable revenge plot. Wolverine fights, he fights some more, he quits fighting, he fights trees as a logger in Canada, he romances sexy love interest Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins), he fights, he tries to find out about a mysteries island, he fights, he says bad lines, and then in the end he fights. Before the final after-credits scene finishes, a few team's worth of mutants get to share the screen with Wolverine. Wolverine's brother and eternal rival Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber) alternates between providing effective dramatic tension and being just plain silly. He does best when he lets his claws talk for him instead of the screenwriters. Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is amusing as a mercenary with a snarky mouth and killer reflexes. Unfortunately his character ends up the most disfigured and marred compared to his fan favorite comic book counterpart.

   
Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) is entertaining in his 15 minutes of screen time, while the Blob (Kevin Durand) is merely mildly retarded in his 15 minutes. Rapper Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas provides something vaguely resembling comic relief as teleporter John Wraith. Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) is a secret Asian man with a spectacular action scene involving a helicopter. The mutant list goes on, though the characters are more one-note special effects props. For a solo movie there is no shortage of mutants. Truth be told, some of these make for terrific action sequences and tiny geekgasms, but unfortunately many are nothing more than transparent attempts to shoehorn in X-Men characters to lay the groundwork for future "X-Men Origins" prefixed films with more words in the titles than I put in my sentences.
   
The film isn't 100% failure though. The opening credits are a credit to the film. This action packed montage spanning from the Civil War to the Vietnam War is the high point of the film, and good enough (unlike the rest of the movie) to even be compared with Watchmen's similar opening. From that fantastic start it goes from good to bearable to bad before plunging all the way down to worse. At times it veers off into the realm of ridiculousness that seems stupid even in a comic book movie with "magic bullets" that belong more in JFK conspiracy movies, twists which if inspected closely reveal plot holes and characters that are more superfluous than super.

Academy Award winning director Gavin Hood (of Tsotsi fame) along with screenwriters David Benioff (of Kiterunner fame) and Skip Woods (of Swordfish fame) have botched their opportunity to create a great Wolverine film. Fast forwarding over the years that could have made for a impressive and monumental storyline along the lines of Benjamin Button seems like a blunder, but then again the very idea of a Wolverine origin prequel is at odds with the character. Wolverine’s missing past is a major aspect of the character, and leaving his early life hazy adds to his characters mystique. On top of that going in the viewer knows that Wolverine can't die because he is in the later movies (not to mention the fact that not dying and appearing in over 9000 issues a month is what his mutant power amounts too). Worse yet, in Wolverine's case any character development he has must be forgotten by the next movie. These are intrinsic flaws, but what really gets Wolverine is the uninspired storyline, decent but lackluster PG-13 action sequences and absurd dialogue that coalesce into a substandard cinema experience.