Wolverine Rising

Rating: 2/10 (3 May 2009)

Watching Hugh Jackman play Wolverine again is like watching Anthony Hopkins play Hannibal again; no matter how bad the movie is, it's still great to watch them play their iconic, and #1 career roles. 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' unfortunately starts off slow, and despite some good action sequences, really never picks up. The major problem with prequels is you already know what's going to happen, and in 'Wolverine' you hear him say I'm going to kill Sabretooth and Stryker probably a dozen times. Well, unless they're asking us to forget the original 'X-Men' films, it's kinda like someone saying in Star Wars 1-3: "I'm going to kill Anakin" or someone actually attempting the murder of the Anti-Christ in 'Left Behind.' And speaking of the original movies, didn't they already give the origins of Wolverine throughout all three films? At very least you learned a lot more about Hannibal Lector in 'Hannibal Rising,' though an equally bad film. In this one, you learn he's about 150 or more years old, he once was in love and his original claws were made of bone, which, by the way was hard to watch – I wanted to see the steel ones throughout. That's about all the extras you'll get as you watch him grow & fight with or against his brother, Sabretooth, from the mid-1800s to present. And as mentioned, though some of the action sequences were well shot, a lot of the CGI, or effects were almost downright laughable. As was the unoriginal dialogue, the extremely predictable "mystery" (and I'm not referring to the fact it's a prequel; solving what this movie presents takes the mind of a four-year-old) and unnecessary and unoriginal origin story that's already been told. One word of advice, despite the "shocking surprise" after the credits, it's NOT WORTH IT.