Conventional action flick

Rating: 3/10 (18 November 2009)

After settling down as a lumberjack Logan (Jackman) sets out to avenge a dreadful murder and gets involved in a process that will make him invincible Last summer Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight shook up the foundations of the superhero genre with a darkly portrayal of political action drama and showcased the hero with personal drama and issues, such as his love for Rachel Dawes and has role is Gotham, and Gavin Hood's revitalization of x-men aims to do the same.
As with Batman Begins we open with a young boy learning of his abilities and from there on in there is a natural progression of his supernatural talents. After a fairly flaky title sequence in which the camera shakes and moves too quickly it is nigh on possible to decode the feeling of hardship, the story starts. A disagreement between Logan and his colleagues causes him discomfort and he leaves, only to be found a year later settling down as a lumberjack.
This stage of the film was critical as an emotional death instigates the film's motives, an act for revenge. The driving force is shown through something to non-fans is labelled as weapon x that turns the central protagonist into an invincible machine.
Now I'm all for a bit of action and revenge, there is hardly anything better. Clear favourites in this field are the Bourne films and Quantum of solace. But this critical stage in this film is cheap with minimal dialogue that ends up evaporating into over the top unrealistic action stages. The whole helicopter thing was ridiculous and the last action sequence of the film is so over the top you may just have to hit the stop button.
Depending on your devotion to the x-men series I would personally recommend staying away as this clunky uninteresting exaggerated action flick would undoubtedly harm the foundations of one of the coolest superheroes in comic book history. Hugh Jackman has been rightfully credited as a genius for cementing such a cool persona to the claw driving menace but this particular performance is too simplified, focusing on CGI action and exaggerated revenge concepts. The particular scene when he emerges from the water as part of the experiment is frankly embarrassing.
When reading reviews for this film I found that Ryan Reynolds was praised and being a fan, I looked forward to seeing the actor finally attempt an action persona. And he was quite good, for his 2 minutes of on screen time.
The good points in this film were the inclusion of the prisoners towards the end and though perhaps predictable, a good attempt at a twist.
To sum up this 2009 picture provides its action in buckets but never executes them in the way the script is giving it. Any attempt at action and the director seems to say yes but the fact is this supposed emotional script provides little and with Jackman growling and frowning away we are left with a run of the mill forgettable action romp.