Not a bad film by all means, but Wolverine did deserve a better origin story

Rating: 5/10 (25 July 2014)

The first X-Men film was fun and well-made though with a beginning-of-the-franchise-not-yet-properly-finding-its-feet feel; X-Men 2 was very, very good indeed and an example of a bigger and darker sequel better than the original(even if it wasn't quite perfect either) and X-Men 3 The Last Stand while nowhere near as bad as its reputation was disappointing(after being so impressed by the previous two) and a step-back in the franchise. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had much going for it but while it is nowhere near a bad film it could have delivered more, considering that this was an origins prequel story. X-Men Origins: Wolverine does have good things, it's well shot and edited(if a little rapid in a couple of the fighting sequences), the special effects are nicely executed and not used too much and the dark, gritty style of the previous three films is wisely maintained, nothing overblown or static here. The opening sequence is robust and exciting and gives you the sense of "looks like we're in for a treat here", most of the action sequences have tension and thrills especially at the end(which also makes a real effort to tie up loose ends), Sabretooth/Victor and Stryker are well-realised and there are a few good performances. Wolverine may be too ambivalent character-development-wise but Hugh Jackman's charisma and grizzled demeanour is pitched perfectly, Liev Schreiber brings real meat, toughness and menace to Victor/Sabretooth and Danny Huston as the villain Stryker is both classy and ruthless and does them very effectively, Stryker avoids being too one-dimensional. Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Kitsch do what they can and are quite good.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine does suffer however from a lot of the same things that X-Men The Last Stand had. The script is very contrived and in a worse way than X-Men The Last Stand, emotional moments are forced, exposition and any explanations are underdeveloped and any bits of humour are on the broad side(X-Men 2 especially avoided this and had a much more even balance). The story has some good atmosphere and good scenes and has some tension, but it does try to cram in too much and things feel rushed and not as developed as they ought. Gavin Hood does reasonably admirably in the action but very like Brett Ratner he is surprisingly not as comfortable in the non-action scenes, in a way that the writing and story, that should give the film depth, are sacrificed by the action(again mostly very good, apart from ones that did lag and you couldn't always tell who was who). Apart from Sabretooth and Stryker (Wolverine was written much better in the first two films but Jackman's presence did make up for things), the characters are disappointingly written, especially Deadpool who had a lot of potential but disappears just like that and appears even more abruptly much later at a stage where you think they've forgotten all about him. Gambit was also treated fairly insignificantly, and other characters like Blob and Kayla(Lynn Collins' acting is wooden in this part) are pretty useless. It doesn't have the too many characters problem like The Last Stand did but it like that film doesn't develop or write the characters well but not as insultingly. On a side note one positive review said that they couldn't understand why The Last Stand and this got criticised for the characters and the first two get a free pass; actually the first two films have been criticised for under-utilising characters and bad acting in them, namely Cyclops and Storm, but at least they tried to respect the characters and not distort them or deprive them of personality like this and Last Stand did(and this is NOT coming from a comic-book purist, far from it, you don't even need to have read an X-Men comic to have this criticism). Harry Gregson-Williams' score has some excitement and induces some suspense but at other points it's too over-bearing and strident, of the X-Men films this film had the least effective score in my opinion. Will.i.Am being cast in an X-Men film would cause alarm bells and his performance is not any better, it felt out of place.
To conclude, could have been better but it's not that bad. 5/10 Bethany Cox