X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Image courtesy of 20^th Century Fox
The first of the summer blockbusters, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, slashed into theaters this past weekend. Unfortunately, the movie failed to live up to the hype because this installment is just another Hollywood foray into one of its beloved proven success formulas – prequels. Now, prequels aren’t always a bad thing. Sometimes fans want to see the history of their favorite superheroes and villains. However, the previously unknown background of Wolverine doesn’t work the way it’s told here because the pace is too bogged down with the introduction of too many new mutants. The film begins with brothers Logan and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) leaving home under duress in 1845, follows them through all the major wars (Civil War, WWI, and WWII), before landing in Vietnam. During Vietnam, Victor starts down a path of evil, both brothers ended up imprisoned, and are rescued by Col. William Stryker (Danny Huston) who gets them to join his team of Mutants. Ultimately, Logan leaves the Mutants over his conflicted morals and settles in Canada with his beloved Kayla (Lynn Collins) for what he hopes will be a monotonous life of peace. Unfortunately, that’s right about the time Victor decides to go on a killing spree and wipe out all the Mutants (including Kayla). When Logan seeks out Col. Stryker to avenge her death, Stryker and his team of scientists inject Logan with Adamantium and he becomes Weapon X Wolverine. The story culminates with Wolverine out for revenge against both Col. Stryker and Victor and ends leading right up to the beginning of the original X-Men with Charles Xavier () leading the remaining Mutants. In addition to Logan/Wolverine and Victor/Sabertooth, the movie also introduces Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Wraith (Will.i.am), The Blob (Kevin Durand), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney),Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), and even a young Cyclops (Tim Pocock). Yet, they are only a part of Wolverine’s backstory because director Gavin Hood needed something to fill in all the holes in his leaky plot. There’s no real sense of depth or purpose to them. Even though, the film moves at an incredibly slow pace for an action flick, the fight scenes are still good, and the special effects are great. Ironically, it’s the overabundance of Mutants who slow down the action because they don’t create any. This was by far the worst X-Men film but a must see either way if you are a movie comic fan. Next up in the series is X-Men Origins: Magneto, and hopefully they do a better job of developing the story lines of these Mutants than Wolverine did. © Goose 5/2009
Running Time:	1 hour 47 minutes
Release Date:	May 1, 2009 (wide)
MAPP Rating:	PG-13 (intense action & violence, partial nudity)
Distributor:	20^th Century Fox