X-Men Origins: Wolverine

A little later than most, I'd guess, but this past weekend I finally went up and watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I liked it, with a few caveats, and I don't regret spending my money to watch it in the theaters.



SPOILERS follow....




Wolverine aka Logan is one of my two favourite comic book heros, on par with Peter Parker. As the movie's title suggests, X-Men Origins: Wolverine delves into the history of Logan prior to the X-Men trilogy. None of Logan's history is surprising if you've followed the comics. My familiarity with Logan's past may have contributed to the slow pacing of the earlier portions of the movie. Fortunately, once Logan is bent on revenge the pace picks up.


Random thoughts:

As I said above, I think they spent too much time on Logan's happy days. It made the film feel slow at the start.

Are the admantium bullets still rattling around inside Logan's skull?

Wait, so Logan's mutant ability can not only heal biological injuries, but can also repaire adamantium?

The bit about Logan's memory loss could have been better done. Sure, two bullets in the brain will cause appreciable damage, but how could Stryker have known it would cause memory loss? In the movie, Stryker explicitly went out to cause Logan's memory loss by shooting Logan in the head. I can't fathom how Stryker could have been so certain. How could Stryker have known that the memories he wanted lost would be lost? Puzzling. The movie would have been better served if the memory loss was consequential but not deliberate.

Many different mutants appear in the movie. Some I recognized from the comics.

Xavier makes a not so surprising appearance near the end. I wonder how much make-up they had to put on Patrick Stewart to make him look younger.

This is another movie where you should stay until the end of the credit roll. Apparently there are actually two different endings after the credits. I saw the one with Deadpool. I would much rather have seen the ending I've read about – Logan in a bar in Japan.

Speaking of... if Logan in Japan is a preview of a Wolverine 2 movie then I'm happy. The Logan-in-Japan stories in the comics have always been interesting, what with the dichotomy of Japanese honour and behaviour along with Logan trying to tame his berserker nature.

I give X-Men Origins: Wolverine 3.5 out of 5 stars.