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X-Men Origins: Wolverine – A Weak Mutation Amongst Comic Films

The summer movie season begins this weekend with Hugh Jackman reprising his role of Wolverine from the previous “X-MEN” films. This film serves as a prequel to the first film and tries to fill in the gaps and answer the questions about Wolverine’s past.

[view:node_ad=5] The film starts out in 1855 (part of Wolverine’s mutation is that he heals rapidly, thus he does not succumb to the same life span as humans), with a young James (Wolverine’s human name), and his brother Victor (mutant name Sabertooth), running away from home after James tragically discovers that he has claws that come out from his hands.

The film then shows Wolverine and Sabertooth played as an adult by Liev Schriber (“The Manchurian Candidate”) fighting in every war all the way through Vietnam where they are recruited to join a task force led by Col. William Stryker played by Danny Huston (“Children of Men”). This task force is comprised entirely of mutants and after an incident where Sabertooth attempts to kill people in a small village, Wolverine leaves the task force to lead a life of his own.

Wolverine gets married to school teacher Kayla played by Lynn Collins (“The Number 23), and works as a lumberjack. His life is disrupted when Sabertooth starts killing the other members of the mutant task force leading to several confrontations with Wolverine. After tragedy strike, Wolverine vows revenge and agrees to allow Stryker to inject him with adamantium to make him indestructible. This results in him getting metal claws. Carnage ensues.

The film does its best to tie in all of the elements that lead to the beginning of the first “X-MEN” film but comes up short. It does, however offer cameos from prominent “X-MEN” characters such as Cyclops and Gambit.

I do not take any pleasure in writing about how disappointed I was with the film, I liken it to the scene at the end of the fifth season of “The Sopranos” where Tony has to kill his cousin, he doesn’t want to do it but it has to be done.

I thought that Hugh Jackman wanted to make this movie because he felt that Wolverine was made to be a wuss by “X-MEN 3” (he was right). He wanted to show how vicious Wolverine really is, however, he fails on that and there are too many laughable moments where Hugh tries to humanize Wolverine.

There was a considerable amount of action, and while those scenes were ok, the only redemptive quality of the film to me was the brief appearance by Ryan Reynolds (“Van Wilder”, “Waiting…” “Blade Trinity”) who plays Wolverine’s task force partner Dead Pool.

I recommend this film to anyone who is either not a fan of the “X-MEN” series or who have a crush on Hugh Jackman (you do see his backside ladies).

I realize that I’ve been spoiled by high quality comic book movies such as “Iron Man”, the first two “X-MEN”, and “The Dark Knight”, so I guess I take this film as a step back. While this wasn’t as bad as “Spider Man 3”, I still wish my brain could heal like Wolverine so that I can recover from having seen this movie.

Thank You for reading and stay tuned as next week I get beamed aboard the SS Enterprise as I will be reviewing “Star Trek”.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – A Weak Mutation Amongst Comic Films

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