X-Men Origins Wolverine Movie Review: Done by Rancel

X-Men Origins Wolverine (Two-Disc Ultimate Edition) [Blu-ray]

Description

X-Men Origins Wolverine is a 2009 film about the popular Marvel Comics superhero Wolverine aka Logan. The film tells the origin of the famous Canadian hero. It is also a prequel to the X-Men films, which Wolverine is also featured in. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is directed by Gavin Hood. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Danny Huston, and Dominic Monaghan.

Summary

X-Men Origins Wolverine starts off in 1845, with two mutant half-brothers named James Howlett and Victor. They both suffer childhood traumas when James Howlett aka young Logan (Troye Sivan) sees his father John Howlett (Peter O’Brien) killed by Thomas Logan (Aaron Jeffery). In an act of vengeance, young Logan kills Thomas Logan using bone claws, which have grown out of his knuckles due to his anger rising up over the incident. Thomas Logan reveals he is James Howlett’s (Logan) real father with his dying breath. Logan and Victor (Michael-James Olsen) runaway depending on each other to survive, they wander and fight in the American Civil War, World War I, World War II and Vietnam.

Hugh Jackman as Logan aka Wolverine in X-Men Origins Wolverine

Liev Schreiber as Sabertooth in X-Men Origins Wolverine

Their unique regenerative powers’ aka healing factors keeps them from dying in battle and they both age slowly in comparison to normal humans. Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber), who is a loose cannon, kills a superior officer in Vietnam after being stopped from raping a girl. Victor Creed and Logan (Hugh Jackman) are sentenced to death by firing squad. Amazingly they both survive and are recruited by Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join an elite squad of mutants in “Team X”. Team X consist of Fred Dukes aka the Blob (Kevin Durand), John Wraith (Will I Am), Chris Bradley aka Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). Years after Logan left Team X during a mission in Lagos, Nigeria. He now resides in Canada as a lumberjack with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) as his girlfriend.

The past catches up with Logan as Victor Creed apparently kills Silverfox. This time Logan has his skeleton fused with the indestructible metal known as “Adamantium” after he loses a fight to Victor Creed aka Sabertooth, in his quest for revenge. The Adamantium was extracted from the meteorite found by Team X. Sabertooth is also killing members of the Team X he served under. Logan who is now known as Wolverine after undergoing the Weapon X experiment run by Stryker, now has the tools to get his revenge. Unknowingly to Wolverine, Stryker is a manipulative, lying, scumbag. He also has toyed with Wolverine’s memories. Stryker is now trying to kill his experiment and sends Sabertooth to take Wolverine down. The two half-brothers eventually join together along with help from the mutant known as Remy LeBeau/Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) after Stryker finds Sabertooth disposable. Together they must defeat Stryker’s new creation in Deadpool. They also must free imprisoned young mutants Stryker has collected to run his experiments on.

Taylor Kitsch as Remy LeBeau (Gambit) X-Men Origins Wolverine

X-Men Origins Wolverine: The Review

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was kind of a letdown looking back on it when I first saw it in the theatres and seeing it again on DVD. The film is only slightly above average, in my opinion for a superhero action film. If it were not for the strong performances by Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and excellent action sequences, the movie would have been a total failure. As good as Hugh Jackman is as Wolverine, Liev Schreiber really steals the show. His charisma is awesome as Victor Creed/Sabertooth. He is a total bad ass like Sabertooth is in the comics. The love and hate relationship between the two brothers is brought to screen well. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber show good chemistry together. I would have liked to see more of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. He would have improved the film if he were featured in it more. Sadly, the final form of Deadpool was mute, which was a really stupid decision. The other characters such as the Blob (Kevin Durand) and John Wraith (Will I Am) were horrible. Will I Am of the Black Eye Peas was terrible as John Wraith. His whole character came off corny and silly. I don’t know what they were trying to do but certain parts of this movie’s script were really sloppy. Stryker was developed well and really made you hate the slime ball.

I think this movie could have benefited by being a little bit longer. It was only a 1 hour and 42 minutes. It seems to me it was just rushed and some things got crammed. Gambit could have been portrayed better. The ladies might like the inclusion of Taylor Kitsch but he was somewhat disappointing without the Cajun accent and cool lines he used in the comics and the 90s cartoon of the X-Men. The “Ragin Cajun”, Gambit along with Wolverine were my favorite X-Men when I used to read and collect the comics in the 90’s. Don’t know; guess they didn’t want him to be too over the top. Nevertheless he wasn’t brought to life too well. The fights in the movie were done real well with good special effects. I particularly like the effect of Sabertooth on all fours running like an animal. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine portrayal is actually done better in the X-Men movies than here. Hopefully they make a Gambit vehicle movie soon. I would love to see the Ragin Cajun brought to screen properly. The makers were lucky this movie was a financial success, but it really is only like a 3.5 out of 5 film. Since they included a lot of characters in the film they should have had better dialogue and character development for them. Some of the characters were just filler. I would say this is a better film to rent then own or you can just watch it on Cable when it comes on.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Official Trailer