Bah, it was't bad at all!

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2009)

What is wrong with you people? Was it becwause your pwor wittle wolverine got changed from the comics a little? Did your favowit favowit character not appear on screen for 4 hours? Aww. There there, wannabe critics. It wasn't that bad.
Wolverine seems to be the sore spot this summer. An unfinished leaked copy on the internet that half of these people based their reviews on. Critics making comparisons to last years completely overrated Dark Knight, some of them expecting X-Men Origins: Wolverine to be the pinnacle of superhero movies. Suddenly, a bunch of people give this movie a "one" rating. Please. It's an action movie that delivers what it promises. It's the over-expectation that causes all the negativity.
Here we see the story of Logan, a mutant born with claws that come out of his hand, in his early years. We find that he ages slowly and heals rapidly (As seen in X-men). He and Victor Creed, who has similar powers fight wars together, until one day, military scientist William Stryker invites them to become part of a mission. Eventually, this leads to a falling out between Logan and Creed. After Logan's girlfriend is murdered, Logan goes on the hunt for Creed, by doing something he doesn't want to do: align himself with Stryker and become a weapon for him.
The movie was short on characterization on some of it's players, because, well, it's focus is Wolverine. We see very little of the Deadpool, Gambit, or other characters. Fans went in and felt cheated that these guys were not on for a long time. I remember watching a movie a long time ago called "Father of the Bride" with Steve Martin. I was kind of dumb in saying it was a "good movie, but we didn't get to really know mom or his daughter much." My cousin turned to me and said "DUH. It's called Father of the Bride", not Mother of the bride, or The Bride". Bad analogy, I know, but really, DUH.
But let's continue with some bad stuff: As a Wolverine fan that's been reading comics since some of you were still in your father, I would have preferred an R rating. It seemed short for what it wanted to do, moving the storyline too quickly from one scene to the next. As such, it would have benefited from an extra 10-15 minutes. It might have left out an explanation or two as to what happened to characters, or how a situation was worked out. There might have even been a dumb scene or two. But after 4 decades of watching movies, I can say the same thing about a whole slew of other movies that rate highly and still have strange plot issues, bad characters, and cheapness. You go see Shawshank Redemption to see Oscar type performances, you go see a movie like Wolverine to go on auto pilot and be entertained by action sequences.
There's no denying that some of the battle scenes were cool. Come on! Bar room fights with claws? A flying jump to a helicopter and slicing it's blades? A Random Act of Violence against a thick steel door? Countless cameos and hidden goodies? Fans shouldn't be complaining, critics need more drugs, and yes, perhaps Fox should just hand over the rights to Marvel.