X-Men Origins: Wolverine

3.5/5

I had low expectations going into this, negative reviews, and all sorts of things being said about the film.

I was however pleasantly surprised, I enjoyed this film quite a lot. I am a fan of X-Men and X-Men 2, not so much X-Men 3 but I still enjoyed it. I wanted the franchise to continue, and the next logical step was to tell Wolverines story. X-Men 2 especially touched on Wolverines past, with William Stryker (Played in X-2 by Brian Cox and here by Danny Huston).

So we start off with a very young Wolverine, we find out how old he is too. We see a dramatic scene (which I wont reveal) which leads him to go off with his brother Victor Creed. We are shown these two through time, sticking together. They eventually end up with Stryker as part of a team with other mutants. Things happen, which lead to the Weapon X project. Yes that was vague, but I would rather not spoil the plot for those who have not seen it. I actually thought they did a decent job of tying things in with the other films, there are a few exceptions but I think you can look passed them.

I have always enjoyed Hugh Jackman in the role of Wolverine, and he really gets to shine here. He looked very buff, and in shape. You can tell he enjoys this role and it helps bring the character alive. I love how Wolverine is in the early 90's cartoon, and I do wish they would have brought some of that Wolverine into the films. I thought Liev Schreiber as Victor Creed was genius casting, I couldn't imagine him in a role like this, but he made it work. Another case of you could tell he had fun playing this character. He brought all the right elements to it, and he had great chemistry with Hugh Jackman. If only Liev had had played that role in X-Men, it would have been a different and better film I think.

Ryan Reynolds and Dominic Monaghan had small roles but I enjoyed them both, in everything I have seen them both in they always deliver and they did that here. I would like to see Ryan in a spin off, he clearly likes the character and I think he could do well. Another stand out was Taylor Kitsch as Gambit, who is my favourite X-Men character and I was looking forward to seeing him finally. I was not disappointed, I thought they did a great job of transforming him for the screen and perfect casting with Taylor, he had the looks and charisma to pull it off. Heres hoping for a Gambit spin off. I wasn't overly impressed with Will I Am as Wraith, I did like Daniel Henney as Agent Zero. Kevin Durand (Who played bad to the bone Keamy on Lost) was quite good as Dukes who would later become Blob. I really liked Lynn Collins as Kayla the love interest, she was beautiful and she had good presence, I believed that Wolverine was in love with her. Really impressive was Danny Huston, he did his own thing as Stryker, and he made it work really well with what has already been done by Brian Cox. He was a great choice.

Some flaws this film had, I would have liked it to be longer, some characters could have been fleshed out more. Some of the effects were rather laughable, while others worked really well. There wasn't a good balance, which let the film down, hopefully they can clean it up for DVD release. I had fun watching this, I enjoyed myself. Which is all that I can ask for with a film of this kind. X-Men fans should not miss this, I think they did a good job.