X-Men Origins: Wolverine - movie review

entertaining but not memorable.

that's pretty much the bottom line, so feel free to stop reading at anytime...

years ago, while i was still basking in the afterglow of the X-Men trilogy, i heard through the imdb.com grapevine that a Wolverine movie was in the works. my love of Hugh Jackman combined with my childhood memories of the animated series had me totally hyped for this movie. i highly doubted it could actually reach - much less exceed - the high expectations of X-Men fans but i knew i'd be shelling out some cashmoney to watch it on the big screen. even the piss-poor, mid-30s rating it got on rottentomatoes.com couldn't deter me. i heard Liev Schreiber was wonderfully vengeful as Sabretooth and that in itself was worth the ticket... plus, Jackman was fucking jacked, man - did you see those commercials of him bursting out of the tank in wet and sexy fury?!

but i digress. and need to take a cold shower. i don't want to give a ton away in case you haven't seen the movie and still plan to, so i'll make a few points instead:

- the opening scene and credits provide a quick but effective glimpse into Wolverine's past. there are "ohhh i see" moments and an underlying feeling of sorrow for the child whose human existence was replaced by a mutant future in a single explosion of rage. HOWEVER, this walk down memory lane lasted just a few minutes! granted, it did lead into a very cool montage of Wolverine and his brother fighting in various wars, but i think a deeper delving into his childhood would have built his character in a way that the previous X-Men movies did not.

- the chase scenes, the explosions, all very well and good. but occasionally, the CGI was shockingly poor. one scene in particular - in which Wolverine owes his elderly hosts some new porcelain - had the worst-looking adamantium claws i've ever seen. they looked like they were either painted on or lifted from a South Park episode. terrible. also... trying to make Professor X look young - ugh. looked like a rookie Photoshop job.

- Wolverine and his wife had zero chemistry on screen. it was awkward. and when the couple has no chemistry, it's hard to care when something tragic happens. you can't tell me that there weren't hundreds of other gals waiting in line to be his on-screen wife! surely there was someone else whose kisses with him wouldn't look like they resulted from a bad spin of the bottle.

- the debut of Gambit left something to be desired. his style, attitude, and kinetic powers were fairly well done but i was hoping for someone a little more chiseled and a lot more charming. like a younger version of that dude from the Dos Equis commercials ("stay thirsty, my friends").

X-Men Origins: Wolverine still contained the cleverness and fun that fans came to expect. but it lacked the oomph that turns a decent action flick into an awesome superhero movie. some of the new characters and plot twists seemed tacked on or simply there to satisfy the regulars on X-Men internet forums. it's impossible to bring in all the characters people want to see. all in all, i feel it may have been better to build a small cast well instead of a large cast half-heartedly.