Review X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Well, it’s started. The season of the way-over-the-top action adventure movie is upon us once again. Ya gotta love it. Popcorn, soda and mind-numbing explosions for 2 hours out of your weekend. Who can’t appreciate that?

Unlike last year, the 2009 monstrously mindless summer movie season started with a bang (no pun intended — well, OK, maybe a little). May 2nd saw the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and boy-oh-boy what a movie it was. Everything you could possible want in a summer movie was packed into this 1 hour and 47 minute jaunt into fantasy land. Nothing, not even the kitchen — er, in this case, the bathroom — sink was left out of this fun and enjoyable movie.

First of all, I need to set the record straight. I’m not an X-Men fan-boy. I’ve always preferred Marvel comics to DC (except in the case of Superman, for whom the term fan-boy, could loosely be applied). However, I’ve not really followed the X-Men in detail. I’ve read some of the comics and am familiar enough with Wolverine to know he has his own set of fans. All that to say if you don’t know much about the X-Men or about Wolverine, don’t worry. The movie will still make sense — at least as much as these kind of movies ever do.

Secondly, surprise, surprise, there is an actual plot that doesn’t get buried beneath all the chaotic explosions (of which there are plenty) and flying bullets (for which myriad would be too light an adjective).

The story, of course, centers around Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman), the brooding, angry, angst driven super-hero and associate of the X-Men. He’s the one who sprouts the indestructible “admantium” claws whenever he gets really pissed off.

The movie successfully explains everything you wanted to know about Wolverine, but didn’t know what to ask. Questions such as: why Wolverine?; why is Sabretooth so pissed off at him?; why does he have missing memories in the first three X-Men movies?; How did he get those really cool claws?; and Just what in hell is admantium anyway?

The movie starts out in Wolverine’s early days as a boy named Jimmy. Really early days (waaaay back in 1845). It’s quickly revealed that he has the ability to almost instantly heal from any wound and rapidly recovers from disease. This obviously has a tendency to extend one’s life span, because during the opening credits we are taken through his experiences fighting in various wars from the Civil War through Vietnam.

During this time he fights back to back with his half-brother, Victor (played by Liev Schreiber), who eventually becomes Sabretooth. After being “executed” as a result of a battle that went bad, they are approached by Col. William Striker. His offer? Serve your country by becoming a part of a mutant army that will be used for special operations. “There’ll be no rules.”, is the promise made by Striker.

It doesn’t take long for Wolverine (now known as Logan — why? Don’t know.), to split from the group because of their highly unethical, violent and immoral tactics. Ending up in Canada he pursues a peaceful life as a lumberjack. Madly in love with a school teacher named Kayla Silverfox (played by Lynn Collins), he seems to have found an ideal life. Of course, we can’t have that, or we won’t have a movie.

Re-enter half-brother, Victor, A.K.A. Sabretooth. Victor, has become increasingly violent and sociopathic. For some reason (revealed later in the film) he is killing the various members of the old team. Now he’s come a-knocking on Wolverine’s door.

Suffice it to say that things don’t go real well for our hero. He get’s the tar beat out of him and his girl, well, you probably can guess. This starts Wolverine on a revenge quest that leads to all sorts of twists, turns and summer movie fun that will leave you the viewer satisfied and eager for more of the same.

Both Jackman and Schreiber bring heart and soul to their respective roles. They make their characters believable. Jackman makes his quite sympathetic while Schreiber is really easy to hate. You really want Wolverine to exact the revenge he seeks. The exchanges between Wolverine and Sabretooth are quite fun, if also quite brutal.

Gavin Hood (the movie’s director) did a superb job at keeping the special effects from drowning out the story while at the same time giving us some wonderful summer movie eye-candy. The scene with the helicopter is definitely re-wind worthy.

All-in-all, though this is no Dark Knight, it certainly wasn’t an Elecktra or Ghost Rider either. Out of 5 stars, I’ll give it a solid 4, and hope that the rest of the summer movie fare does as well.

Picture by flicker user eye of einstein under Creative Commons License. Use of this picture does not constitute and endorsement by eye of einstein of the ideas in this post.

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