It just don't cut it (despite the adamantium)

Rating: 4/10 (8 November 2009)

Recap: While growing up, a traumatic event teaches Logan two things about himself. First of all, he is virtually indestructible. He cannot die, neither from age nor violence. And he can grow spikes through his knuckles and cause much damage. At first he and his brother serves in every war they can get into, but later Logan withdraws when more and more civilians get in their line of fire. This creates a conflict between him and his brother and his former commanding officer.
Comments: It didn't take many seconds and many scenes for this movie to go far over the top. Full of clichés it tries to pack as much action into each and every scene as possible, it quickly gets silly. I enjoyed the three original X-men movies very much, but this is not at all up to the standards they set. It is unbalanced, and because of the way it develops, too unbelievable. Sure, I know it is a work of fantasy and fiction, but it is not even believable and true to the universe created by the first three movies, and that is catastrophic.
When the main star stays on to do a sequel it usually means that the production is up to the standard of the previous movies. This obviously is far from it. There are three major faults that almost kills this movie instantly.
The first is the predictability of the story. From the first scene you can almost predict the entire movie. No suspense, no surprise. Just stupid clichés one after another. And without the balance of a story with substance, the action just get mind-numbingly boring after a while.
The second weakness is odd and irritating. I haven't read the comics so I don't know the "true" history of Wolverine, but I felt that this really broke with the previous but chronologically later movies. I can't see how that Wolverine can come from this version. There is too much that differs, too much that can't plausible develop into what is supposed to happen later on. It's not true to its own ideas and universe. And the stupid Deus Ex Machina that is supposed to save the storyline that give Wolverine an amnesia is just ridiculous. A kindergarten kid could have been more imaginative, and would be just as irritated as me with this story and the previous didn't fit together. This element is just lazy and plain stupid. And what is supposed to happen in the next (planned) prequel, another convenient amnesia?
The third weakness is the most surprising one, but also significant for the entire production. The special effects, and especially the CGI are just plain bad. Many times it just doesn't look real or believable, it looks real amateurish. This is the kind of CGI I would expect in an old episode of Xena, not in a modern high budget movie-sequel. It is so bad that at times the actors really doesn't look to be in the movie at all, you can see them in the studio walking towards the bluescreen behind them. This CGI shortcomings is so bad it should be embarrassing.
In all this prequel was a huge disappointment. It just doesn't look like they made an real effort, only Hugh Jackman as Wolverine works. It seems they thought they could live on the previous movies, and just cash in by cutting too many corners. This is just plain bad craftsmanship.
The best part of a movie should not be myself singing Monty Python's "He's a lumberjack and he's OK" to some scenes 4/10