X Men Tale of love, and betrayal

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2009)

I have only seen the first X Men and this one. I liked them both, a lot. There has been a lot of talk about Brian Singer being such a great director, and though the direction of this particular movie is based more on action than the Brian Singer movie(s) it is still a very good film. The settings of this movie are very different from the urban original. Here the settings are largely the wilderness.
The film begins with Logan as a child. He commits a grave sin and then runs away from home. His brother, Victor Creed, joins him. the film is a lot to do with brotherhood loyalty. That is, to a large extent, what the film is about. The two Brothers, who fought in many wars together split up. Logan finds it all two corrupt and murderous, while Victor (Sabertooth) seems to revel in the killings. And, as the movie progresses, this becomes a key part of Sabbertooth's psychology. This sets something in motion as Victor stays with the crack team while Logan (Wolverine) takes to chopping down trees for a living. He is made an offer to rejoin William Strykers(their leader) special force and this Logans refusal is the beginning of the end.
To a large extent as I have said before the focus of this film is action but the villains, the hero's and heroine's are very well defined so there is also an emotional impact to the fighting and explosions. But there is also a great deal of tragedy involved. The beautiful Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox is murdered at the beginning. Logan then agrees to have his skeleton made into an ultra tough metal called Adamantium in order to take revenge on his brother. The procedure of turning Logans once bone claw into adamantium is one that very few can survive. Indeed, Wolverine actually flat-lines.
There are many twists along the way. I think I shall get more involved with the X Men comics from now on. In a very tender scene between Kayla and her boyfriend Logan she tells him a tale. This leads to his naming himself Wolverine. The villain William Stryker is a manifold question. Why is he so OBSESSED with hurting Wolverine. In a sense he isn't. He does want Wolverine to be a part of his ideology, it's just that he just can't stand the idea of Wolveine having memory. If he has memory then he will not be a beast or an animal (a constantly occurring motif by the way) and Wolverine will be all too human. But Mr Stryker has something very deadly against mutants. Indeed, he has something very deadly in store for them. But this is the dark secret of the movie. I enjoyed Danny Hustons performance a great deal. A return to the more character based work of the originals.
I found the ending to be truly sad. Some points nearly bringing me to tears.