Directed by Gavin HoodWritten by David Benjoff, Skip Woods
Cast Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Lynn Collins. Taylor Kitsch, Daniel Henney, Dominic Monaghan, Kevin Durand, Will i Am
Reviewed by PäiviWhen I was a teenage girl, I loved reading X-Men comics (and other Marvel-comics as well). My two favourite characters were Wolverine and Storm - Storm for being so beautiful (especially when her hair was cut and she was wearing it as a mohican) and so powerful with her talent on controlling the weather, and then Wolverine - for being the tough guy with those magnificent claws and a skeleton made of some fancy sounding adamantium. Also, what combines these two characters was that their past is interesting: it holds secrets only few people know.
When they made movies of X-Men, I was happy to find my other favourite character performed by an actor that suits the character perfectly. Yeah well, Hugh Jackman is a lot taller than Wolverine in the comics, but that did not matter. He did a brilliant job.
A movie of this character's origins that so many I've heard thinks as their favourite character, was more than justified. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is exactly what the name tells: how Logan became the adamantium-skeletoned Wolverine.
The story begins with events that lead to young James (Troye Sivan) first witnessing the claws coming out of his hands and killing a man. Terrified of what happened, James and his older brother Victor escape from home. Both of the boys have the skill of healing fast and eventually they end up fighting back to back in many wars. It is not until in Vietnam war when the then grown up brothers (Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber) are spotted by a certain William Stryker (Danny Huston) who recruits the brothers to his secret group of overly skilled soldiers.
The many wars have made their mark on the brothers: when James (now known as Logan) has grown to hate all the killing, Victor has learned to love his power. When Stryker takes them on a mission that is morally questionable in nature, James leaves the group and for many years lives a harmonic and peaceful life in the Canadian Rockies with beautiful Kayla (Lynn Collins). But Logan is not meant to live in peace, and after six peaceful years his brother finds him which leads to events that give birth to the Wolverine we all know.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a dark story with a lot of emotions. It is a very well made action flick with all the compounds an action fan would enjoy. But it has also flaws that made me drop off one star from the review.
South-African born and awarded director Gavin Hood has all the tools to make a great film of one of the most-loved comic characters ever, but sometimes he relies too much on the old action cliches where the hero walks out of a scene of an exploding helicopter just a few meters behind without looking back for example.
Also the visual effects are often not at the level they should be. For example the scene when Wolverine admires his new adamantium claws for the first time, they look fake, and with all the technology available today, this kind of essential thing from the story's point of view should be pretty basic to make look real. In some scenes I was really wondering how the effects could be so poorly made in a movie of this big budget.
But overall, Wolverine is a decent piece of entertainment. The story rests on Jackman's charisma pretty strongly, which is understandable because of the awesome charisma of last year's sexiest man on Earth. Jackman makes Wolverine the character we know from Marvel's comics, and even though he still brings some new life to the character, he does it in such a subtle way that the audience is totally bought.Of the other mutants seen on the flick, we can see among others Ryan Reynolds' swordman Wade, Kevin Durand as Blob, Dominic Monaghan as Bolt, Will i Am as John Wraith, Daniel Henney as Agent Zero and Tim Pocock as young Scott Summers (future leader of the X-Men, Cyclops). Also Taylor Kitch's Gambit does some cool stuff with his cards.
