Less than evolutionary

Rating: 5/10 (27 May 2009)

This first spin-off from the X Men series has Hugh Jackman reprising his role as everyone's favourite pointy-haired, pointy-knuckled mutant with anger-management issues, and, like Batman Begins, attempts to fill in the character's troubled back-story prior to the launching of his superhero career. Unfortunately, it also attempts to shoehorn in every character from the X Men comics who got left out of the first 3 movies, apparently in an effort to tickle the comic book fan-boys in the audience, and the resulting film, while not as muddled as the over-stuffed X Men: The Last Stand, still suffers from an excess of awkwardly contrived super-cameos that detract from, rather than add to, the story. Moreover, like many prequels (e.g. Star Wars) it contains some whopping inconsistencies with events in the earlier/later episodes that leave you wondering if the writers even bothered to watch the other X Men films before penning the script for this one. (E.g. - William Stryker's involvement with Sabretooth in this movie simply contradicts his "I thought you were the only one of your kind, Wolverine" line in X2.) And there are some plot-holes you could drive a truck through. (Adamantium bullets?!?)
On the plus side, it moves along at a fair old pace, there's plenty to look at, and it weighs in at just 90 minutes, which, in this age of over-long, "epic", posterior-numbing blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean, is something one can be truly grateful for.
All told, not a dreadful movie, but way below the standard set by Bryan Singer's first two.