I totally paused!

Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, & Danny Huston

The title tells it all – we get to see the origins of Wolverine.  While I probably would have liked to see some other origin stories first, like Professor Xavier or Magneto, I know that Wolverine is the popular one, so that’s what we got.

I liked the opening sequence of the movie, seeing the young Logan and actually getting to watch the moment when his mutation takes hold.  The war montage that follows with Logan and his brother Victor was also interesting to me.  Did these guys just like fighting?  Or did they actually feel like they should fight for their country because they couldn’t be killed?

Unfortunately, it kind of went down hill from there.  As someone unfamiliar with the X-Men world (I have never claimed to be a comic book geek, just fyi), I have no idea what the mutations of some of the other characters were.  After awhile, some of them revealed it themselves, such as Dominic Monaghan having mind powers or whatever, and Will.I.Am being able to transport himself.  But I will forever wonder what exactly was the power that Ryan Reynolds possessed?  That he’s good with weapons?  Plus why is Victor called Sabretooth?  He has claws, and yes, slightly emphasized teeth, but they aren’t his big thing!

The movie is definitely action packed, and since I wasn’t expecting anything more out of it, I was not disappointed.  In my opinion, the specifics of a movie like this aren’t really that important – you don’t see it for the plot really, you go for the action.  What I liked?  There weren’t any silly car chases or extended gun fights.  Since bullets are useless against Wolverine, and I like hand to hand combat better, this suited me fine.

I think perhaps my favorite thing was finally seeing why Logan has no memory of his early life.  I like that despite not being able to remember anything prior to the day he destroyed Weapon XI, he still has an innate sense of humanity and justice – very different from Victor.  Although in reading about this, apparently it’s a total fabrication of his origin and memory loss, so I’m glad at this point I’m not a comic book geek.

We also kind of got to see the origin of Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, and I’m amused that they’re rivals in the other movies given that Logan saved his life.  But Scott couldn’t see, so I guess he didn’t know…and who’s paying attention to potential plot holes either, like how Sabretooth from the earlier movies never said anything about being Logan’s brother.  I’m wondering if this stuff with Scott is their way of avoiding doing an origin movie about him.  Not that I think they intended to anyway.

See this movie if: You’re a fan of the previous X-Men movies, or are looking for an actiony type thing to watch.  On the whole, because I knew what I was going to get when I went into it, you could say I liked the movie fine.  It’s not ever going to make my favorites list, but it was a fun rental.  And there wasn’t anything terribly bad in it, so you can totally have your age appropriate kids watch it.

My Rating: 3/5

Six Degrees of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Dominic Monaghan was on Lost with Daniel Dae Kim
Daniel Dae Kim was on Angel with a bunch of people from BTVS: Angel, Cordelia, Wesley!