Henry Saw: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Hopefully this isn't the start of a weak summer movie season...


Swing and a miss.

Theoretically this isn't that bad of a summer movie. It's fast-paced, has some likable actors, a couple of decent action scenes...but the whole thing feels very cheap, very rushed, and just underwhelming.

The movie, set roughly 15 years before the first X-men movie, starts even earlier than that with a very young Wolverine (named James Howlett) discovering his claws by accidentally murdering his father and running away with his brother Victor. We then get a strange montage showing Wolverine (now known as Logan for some reason and played by Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) fighting in every American war (even though they're Canadian...) since the Civil War.

After Vietnam they're recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join a strike team made up of other mutants (including Wade Wilson played by Ryan Reynolds) and go on a mission to recover a mysterious metal. This is the first real action scene and it's solid. There's some snappy dialogue between the team members, Reynolds' is his charming self, and even though there's something a little off about the whole thing (is this their first mission all together? Why doesn't Wolverine, you know, the title character, do anything during this scene?).

Anyway, Wolverine objects to the team's methods and leaves to live up in Canada with a girlfriend (wife?) named Jayla but is brought back into the fold by Stryker when he learns that members of the team are being killed off. Soon he is clashing with Victor (who we learn is the killer), getting metal laced to his skeleton, and then, of course, forced to fight against Stryker after he's double crossed.

The rest of the movie is a very generic "on the run" action movie filled with extended cameos (Gambit, a crappy, but popular 90's character pops up) and a very silly finale that includes Three Mile Island, a memory erasing bullet, a creepily de-aged Patrick Stewart, and a lame final fight against "Deadpool" - an awesome character who is terribly represented in the film - that is more like a video game than an exciting conclusion.

The direction by Gavin Hood is capable but unremarkable. The action is fine, he avoids any 'shaky cam' and actually shows us what is going on in each fight, but he also doesn't bring any pizazz or real visual flair to the action. The other scenes are almost all incredibly bland and don't feel like they're really a step up from any well made FX television series. Sometimes they're worse than what you might see on 24 or The Shield.

Jackman is his dependable self, he doesn't seem bored by the role yet, but he's also kind of uninteresting. Wolverine isn't mysterious in this movie like he was in the first X-Men, nor is he as funny, and he never seems as dangerous as he did in the mansion siege scene in X-Men 2. Wolverine is actually much less interesting than Victor (known as Sabertooth in the comics) but even Victor is pretty one note. Reynolds is wasted as Wade Wilson and every other cast member is just kinda there.

Look, this isn't an embarrassing movie like some other comic book movies have been. It's better than Ghost Rider, or Elektra, but that's not saying much. The whole thing feels kinda cheap (including some of the effects) and could have been so much more.

Don't bother seeing this in the theater...even if you're a fan of the X-men movies...but for a Friday night rental it's perfectly acceptable. Still, it's a definite disappointment and we can only hope the summer offers far superior movies in the months ahead.

Grade: C

Best Scene: Wolverine versus a Helicopter