Unfortunately generic and uninspired

Rating: 5/10 (23 May 2009)

It has nice action scenes, although a few were cut too rapidly to follow, and adequate earnest performances from Wolverine (Jackman) and his brother nemesis but overall this felt very average and generic. The story was pedestrian and unengaging (except for the promising start), the dialogs were mostly lame, the music was just there (not really noticeable actually) and although some of the CG effects were decent, a few were weak and noticeable as computer effects (especially the end). The directing was competent but uninspired.
Wolverine lacked a certain X factor that would have made me care about him or the secondary characters even though, considering some of the tragedies, I should have. Perhaps it's because you don't see the secondary characters enough on-screen, perhaps it's because their characterization was lacking or perhaps it's because there's too many of them. I won't get started on the many liberties taken over the source material and I tried not to evaluate it based on that. Perhaps by their very nature, prequels cannot be as interesting or suspenseful as the originals because in a way you already know the final result. It felt to me the weakest of the X-Men movie franchise and rather disappointing. I was entertained but barely and I'm not particularly interested in seeing it again anytime soon.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10