X-Men: le origini - Wolverine

Forget tedious expose and pointless set up, the movie delivers a crisp story and exactly the Wolverine I wanted to see. This is a pure meat and potatoes movie. Stick with me on the food analogy. I've seen some complain about subsidiary characters but when the main course is this good and this filling, who cares? Whining about Gambit, Wade Wilson and company is like whining that the mushrooms aren't as good as they should be when the steak is juicy and remarkably tasty. Great kick-ass action, remarkable visuals, a coherent plot, this is definitely the highlight of the year so far. As I like to note, a must see event film if there ever was one. Anyone that says otherwise isn't telling the truth. I can't think of a truly weak moment in the film because the pace is near perfect. It's strong from start to finish. The powerful moments resonate throughout the film, both the tremendous action and the heartfelt moments. The confrontations are simply incredible, best of the series.

Wonderful film for fan and non-fan alike. Highly Recommended.

I have no idea as to why people bash Wolverine. I think its an extremely well made, highly entertaining movie with great acting and a fitting storyline. Its also pretty dark and uncompromising in many scenes.

The fight scenes are brutal and intense which makes them really awesome.

I was actually surprised by some of the plot twists. Great.

The opening title sequence should win some kind of award. Gave me goose bumps. The editing is perfect.

Only complaint is the few plot holes towards the X-men trilogy.

The first X-Men film was fun and well-made though with a beginning-of-the-franchise-not-yet-properly-finding-its-feet feel; X-Men 2 was very, very good indeed and an example of a bigger and darker sequel better than the original(even if it wasn't quite perfect either) and X-Men 3 The Last Stand while nowhere near as bad as its reputation was disappointing(after being so impressed by the previous two) and a step-back in the franchise. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had much going for it but while it is nowhere near a bad film it could have delivered more, considering that this was an origins prequel story. X-Men Origins: Wolverine does have good things, it's well shot and edited(if a little rapid in a couple of the fighting sequences), the special effects are nicely executed and not used too much and the dark, gritty style of the previous three films is wisely maintained, nothing overblown or static here. The opening sequence is robust and exciting and gives you the sense of "looks like we're in for a treat here", most of the action sequences have tension and thrills especially at the end(which also makes a real effort to tie up loose ends), Sabretooth/Victor and Stryker are well-realised and there are a few good performances. Wolverine may be too ambivalent character-development-wise but Hugh Jackman's charisma and grizzled demeanour is pitched perfectly, Liev Schreiber brings real meat, toughness and menace to Victor/Sabretooth and Danny Huston as the villain Stryker is both classy and ruthless and does them very effectively, Stryker avoids being too one-dimensional. Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Kitsch do what they can and are quite good.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine does suffer however from a lot of the same things that X-Men The Last Stand had. The script is very contrived and in a worse way than X-Men The Last Stand, emotional moments are forced, exposition and any explanations are underdeveloped and any bits of humour are on the broad side(X-Men 2 especially avoided this and had a much more even balance). The story has some good atmosphere and good scenes and has some tension, but it does try to cram in too much and things feel rushed and not as developed as they ought. Gavin Hood does reasonably admirably in the action but very like Brett Ratner he is surprisingly not as comfortable in the non-action scenes, in a way that the writing and story, that should give the film depth, are sacrificed by the action(again mostly very good, apart from ones that did lag and you couldn't always tell who was who). Apart from Sabretooth and Stryker (Wolverine was written much better in the first two films but Jackman's presence did make up for things), the characters are disappointingly written, especially Deadpool who had a lot of potential but disappears just like that and appears even more abruptly much later at a stage where you think they've forgotten all about him. Gambit was also treated fairly insignificantly, and other characters like Blob and Kayla(Lynn Collins' acting is wooden in this part) are pretty useless. It doesn't have the too many characters problem like The Last Stand did but it like that film doesn't develop or write the characters well but not as insultingly. On a side note one positive review said that they couldn't understand why The Last Stand and this got criticised for the characters and the first two get a free pass; actually the first two films have been criticised for under-utilising characters and bad acting in them, namely Cyclops and Storm, but at least they tried to respect the characters and not distort them or deprive them of personality like this and Last Stand did(and this is NOT coming from a comic-book purist, far from it, you don't even need to have read an X-Men comic to have this criticism). Harry Gregson-Williams' score has some excitement and induces some suspense but at other points it's too over-bearing and strident, of the X-Men films this film had the least effective score in my opinion. Will.i.Am being cast in an X-Men film would cause alarm bells and his performance is not any better, it felt out of place.

To conclude, could have been better but it's not that bad. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This film reminds me of Phantom Menace. You probably like it more when you're younger, but as you get older, the flaws are more apparent. The movie is weak and although it's not awful, it's so mediocre and on that fine line, that you might as well say it's bad. It's the weakest of all the Xmen movies and then X3 after that.

The previous movies alluded to the idea that Wolverine was barely holding back his more intense rages. That struggle is what makes him so compelling - that with just one slip up he'd be more animal than man. So what I wanted from Origins was that crazy Wolverine that the current day guy was afraid of. Instead they presented a pretty levelheaded guy who just liked to fight, but not that much.

Also, they totally botched the purpose of the Weapon X stuff. Namelythe purpose of the program is to subjugate mutants by treating them like objects, not people. So even if they wanted to go with the whole "level headed Canadian" for the first part of the movie, he should have been turned into that crazy, out-of-control animal after Weapon X. This way I could see his humanity stripped away, revealing the animal inside, and thus showing me why he's afraid that it'll get out again.

Alas, his response to volunteering for the program is more of a casual confusion at his new, sharper claws. Basically, they missed the point of the character.

Forget the reviews that focus on dialogue (it's a comic book character, of course it's clichéd) or other types of thing you may look for in movies like a Room With A View. In this movie you want to see cool action, cool use of superpowers, great fights with CGI that is not obvious and some tension about what happens next. This movie has it all. Academy awards? No. Amazing plot? No, but enough to keep it very interesting, with answers like where Adamantium comes from, Sabretooth and Wolverine relationship, introduction of Deadpool, early view of Cyclops, and much more that keeps the movie going along just fine. This is a solid action film, better than most.