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I should make it clear that I have never read a single X-Men comic.My knowledge of X-Men is I am sad to say solely based on the cinematic outings of the legendary comic book creations.

This picture is cooler than anything in the movie

I guess it was inevitable after the box office success of the mediocre X-Men The Last Stand that 20th Century Fox would want to keep milking the cash cow that is X-Men. The first X-Men film was a good introduction to the best known characters in the series and the sequel X2 built on that introduction and gave us one of the finest comic book adaptions to date.All thanks in no small part to director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects,Valkyrie),but then he left the series and in a rush to get the second sequel into theatres they hired Brett Ratner(Rush Hour, Red Dragon) and the result was a film that lost a lot of the care and attention to characters the previous two installments had and replaced it with loud and sometimes impressive action sequences.

And so now we have X-Men Origins Wolverine a film we where lead to believe would  harken back to the more character based storylines of the first two films.The film begins with a pre-credits sequence in which a young Wolverine (called Jimmy) is ill.His friend Victor says he is ill alot(Mutant Puberty?).Theres a knock at the door, a commotion, a gun goes off and young Wolvie seeing the man he believes to be his father die in front of him grows some funky bone claws and impales the shooter only to learn too late a horrible truth.This sequence makes no sense on a number of levels.The worst of which is why is young wolvie living with this family.I thought this may be explained later in the movie but it aint.Then, there are the actors who portray the fathers, they bear a striking resemblance to their grown up sons yet we are led to believe only one of them is their father.

So five minutes in and I am confused already. We then get possibly the films strongest sequence in which we witness Wolvie and Victor Creed (Sabretooth) battle their way through The American Civil War, World War 1,2 and The Vietnam War. It’s a great sequence that plays over the title credits and give us a quick insight into Wolvies growing dislike for the animals that he and especially his brother? have become. It plays like the opening credits of Watchman though is not quite as memorable.  

Deadpool,Gambit,Wolvie,Sabretooth and some Bird

After they survive a firing squad they are invited to join an elite group of mutants led by William Stryker (played in X2 by Brian Cox and here by Danny Huston). I would love to go through the other mutants on this elite group, but as the screenwriters failed to make any of them memorable i cant even remember half of their names. All I can say is that one would be handy in a blackout (Dominic Monaghan), one can do that Gun Kata thing Christan Bale did in Equilibrium, one looks like Juggernaut from The Last stand, one is i can only assume a Blinged up Teleporting Cowboy and finally there’s Ryan Reynolds playing Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool.There could have been more but if there was I cant remember. Reynold’s and Monaghans characters are the only two of this group that get anything decent to do.

In the films only good action sequence, the elite squad have to penetrate a diamond lords building. Deadpool manages to use his swords like a Jedi Knight wielding a lightsaber to pretty much kill everyone in the room (although they may not be dead as this film is devoid of any blood). Here they find a meteor fragment that Stryker has been looking for, as the rock contains raw Adamantium. Why Stryker couldnt have just offered the diamond dealer some money for it (they like money), instead of mounting a military operation and killing loads of people in the process is like many things never explained.

To cut a long story short they go to a village to find the source of the meteor, shit hits the fan and Wolvie says “Im Out”.Fast forward a few years and he is shacked up with some bird in the Canadian Rockies having nightmares and going through bedsheets like an incontinent old man. So he’s in love and living a normal life as a lumberjack. Here’s the problem - we are asked at a point not long after we are introduced to his love interest to feel empathy and sadness when something bad happens to her, when we have no backstory whatsoever into their relationship. How did they met, feel in love etc. This makes Wolverines fury and revenge all the harder to empathise with as we, the audience, have been given no time to get to know his lady, I think her name is Kara, thats about all I remember. SPOILER ALERT - she reappears later in the movie for a typically cliched reason, yet I had no sympathy for her plight as I was given no time to care about her in the first place.

This may look exciting......It Ain't

So Stryker reappears around this point and explains to Wolvie that someone is killing of members of the elite team. Turns out Victor is the badass perpatrator  killing other mutants and then turns his attention to Wolvie’s lady love. So Wolvie gets mad, howls at the moon and signs himself up for some revenge. Cue a sequence we have seen before although done better (in X2) in which Wolvie gets injected with Adamantium which Stryker tells him will make him indestructable. Heres the thing, after making him indestructable Stryker decides to erase his memory. Why he didn’t see fit to do this before making him indestructable is anyones guess. So Wolvie hears this using his super underwater hearing and decides instead of getting dressed he better just leg it out of there naked, cue Jackmans ass which impressivly appears to be his own, unless they spent the special effects budget on it, which is possible as they obviously didnt spend it on any of the other effects in the movie.  

And so Wolvie is off and running and to be honest I had given up any hope by this stage of the film in some way redemming itself (it doesnt). I lost interest in pretty much anything happening onscreen. Wolvie runs into a few old friends and Gambit a poker playing redneck whose power is never really explained. He bumps into Victor and even though they are indestructable they fight each other anyway. Wouldnt it make more sense for them to sit down and have a civilised conversation.

It all culminates on Five Mile Island when the spoiler alert above is revealed and there is a three way face off between Wolvie,Victor and Weapon XI who is actually Deadpool only he looks a bit like Neo when he was connected to the Matrix and that bit in the Matrix where Neo`s mouth seals shut only the make up is inferior. Somehow Weapon XI can also produce Adamantium swords from his arms but can also fight like Jet Li on speed when they are retracted. Oh yeah, and he has the powers of other mutants. Anyway Stryker shots Wolvie with an Adamantium bullet because apparently this convieniently makes him lose his memory though its again never explained why and we are back to basically the beginning of the first X-Men film where Wolvie has no memory. Its a shame that the filmakers didnt give us a movie based on the opening credits as it would have been much more interesting to have a film that focused on just the two most interesting characters in the film. It would have been much more interesting to see what made Victor become the sadistic animal he is and what made Wolvie come to detest the life they led. Instead we get a film that stretches out sequences that worked better as glimpses in the previous installments. Wolverine was a much more interesting character when he had some mystery about him.  

The film isnt all bad the highpoint being Liev Schrieber`s performance as Victor Creed/Sabretooth. He comes across as suitably menacing and sadistic. Director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi/Rendition) gives the film a darker tone than the previous installments, unfortunatly the film often looks ugly even though I wathced it digitally projected. Visual effects are very poor and often seem unfinished. The music score fails to register either. For a reported $140 million movie it does not look to impress at all.

Honestly,This would have been more believable than the effects in the movie.

Closing Comments  Mediocre in the extreme, and worst of all . . . . boring!  1 and a Half Stars