The first of several planned "Origins" stories, Wolverine acts as a prequel to the X-Men trilogy and fills in the back story to our favourite metal-clawed amnesiac mutant, whilst introducing us to a host of new characters from the comics as well as a teenage Cyclops. The specifics of the plot itself are nothing particularly spectacular; the traditional variety of conspiracies, betrayals and evil plans. Really it's all just an excuse to give Hugh Jackman the opportunity to kill lots more bad guys...To get straight to the point, Wolverine is a reasonably enjoyable action romp and a fun way to kill a couple of hours. It is however almost painfully average in pretty much every way - the plot is generic and muddled, the acting inconsistent, and the action unoriginal. In all honesty I probably enjoyed it more as a result of having extremely low expectations (early buzz on the film was poor). It does at least play reasonably well in continuity terms with the X-Men trilogy, although there are some niggles - exactly how did Sabretooth go from slightly hairy to practically a human lion in the first movie? And if Cyclops was in high school in the late 70's wouldn't he have been a lot older in the trilogy? And for that matter, wouldn't he have remembered Wolverine when they meet again years later?
Aside from that, there are three things that did bother me quite a bit:
- Ryan Reynolds was totally wasted as Deadpool - apparently there is going to be a spin-off movie featuring the character but I don't see how they can keep it neatly tied in to this film because they seem to have already ruined the character.
- After years of demand from X-Men fans, Gambit is finally introduced. And he's rubbish.
- The CGI is at times appalling and reeks of being rushed. You know things are bad when they can't even make Wolverine's claws look realistic despite it being quite easily accomplished in the first X-Men 9 years ago...
This may all sound quite negative, but it's not that bad. Compared to the main trilogy it's clearly inferior but it's not that far behind X-Men: The Last Stand - but then again that film had a few issues as well...
VERDICT: Enjoyable but ultimately a missed opportunity. Give me more real X-Men movies.
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