Better Than I Thought It Was Going To Be

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2009)

This is the origins story of the mutant known as Wolverine and how he was attached to the weapon x project.
When I first heard they were going to make this flick, I thought that the series was going to go into a nosedive. The third film in the X-men franchise lacked everything that made the first two films enjoyable. Now a spin-off? I wasn't having it and the fact that they seemed to ruin one of my favourite x-men characters in the trailers didn't seem to help either. Well, I can say this, the film is not that bad. It's actually decent and a step up from the horrid Last Stand. Although they do miss a few steps that really hurt the film as a whole.
First off Hugh Jackman was born to play this character, here he is given more room to dive deeper into the animal and he does a great job. Mixing both comedic and dramatic elements, there is nothing new here to the character, just more of the same. More of the same though is fun and kick ass. Liev Schreiber plays Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth. His look is different from the first time we see him and he actually has some speaking lines here. Excellent casting choice, Liev really lets go here and you can see the fun he is having with the character.
Now, onto the two things that are ruined, from a "fan" perspective. Deadpool and Gambit. Many fans knew going in that these two guys were both kick ass and that the film was not going to do them justice. Well, it's true. These two guys lacked the screen time and the badass personas that people have come to love. Ryan Reynold has 5 minutes of screen time, he does he usual jokey bits like in Blade Trinity, but here it fits for the character. We see one scene in which he uses his blades to deflect bullets, quite cool. Then he is gone for the rest of the film. Gambit shows up 3/4 of the way through and is horribly underused. Why is he in here again? His scenes lacked a lot of punch it seems that his character was only used to draw in fans. The character in the film could have been anybody else and it wouldn't effect the story, but they chose Gambit cause fans wanted to see him. You will be disappointed.
The final fight sequences is interesting, I don't want to go into details cause that would give away certain plot points, specifically who the final fight scene is with and why he is fighting him. I have to raise another complaint though, as for the explanation for Wolverine's so called memory loss. They don't explain it very well in the film, they just say that this will make him not remember. Why? I don't know. Fighting fire with fire just doesn't make sense to me. The explanation for his memory loss is truly pathetic and doesn't make any sense.
There are cameos from a lot of mutants, cyclops as a kid is one and another one at the end that fans will enjoy. I thought that they could have trimmed the running time down a bit, currently 1hr46min. Subplots don't really work in this film, I'm talking about his love interest. A lazy way to try and drive the plot forward.
The action sequences range from enjoyable to laughable. The opening credit sequences is neat and mirrors what Watchmen did.Fans will most likely be disappointed by the lack of respect this "origin" story deserved. It's leaps and bounds over the last film, but that's not really saying much. The special effects are the worst in the entire series, which is a huge let knock against it because it's almost ten years after the original.