X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

Fortunately, while it's not the best in the X-Men series, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is still a satisfactory film.

If you haven't already guessed, this film tells the back story of one of the most well-known mutants in the franchise, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), whose real name is James Howlett. He and his mutant brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber), born 200 years ago, suffer childhood trauma and have only each other to depend on. Basically, they're fighters and killers, living from war to war through U.S. history. In modern times, a U.S. colonel, William Stryker (Danny Huston), recruits them and other mutants as commandos. James, now known as Logan, quits and becomes a logger, falling in love with a local teacher, Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). When Logan refuses to rejoin Stryker's crew, the colonel sends the murderous Victor. Logan now wants revenge.

I'm not going to state what I didn't like about the film so instead I shall talk about what I enjoyed. For example, I liked learning about Logan's background and how he ended up with his legendary name, Wolverine. I think this film makes him a well-developed character. Jackman's performance is strong, as usual. Schreiber is great as Victor, also known as Sabretooth. He is menacing and doesn't hesitate to kill. In X-Men 2, Colonel Stryker was played by Brian Cox who was interested in returning to this film but the filmmakers hired Huston instead. While I think Cox's performance stands out more, Huston is still just as good. 

This film also features some familiar mutants such as Scott Summers (Tim Pocock), also known as Cyclops. We see him as a young teenager being captured by Victor and Stryker to be used on an experiment. Die-hard fans might also recognise other mutants including: Quicksilver; Banshee; Toad; Psylocke; Whirlwind and Dust. All these mutants are being used for an experiment known as Weapon XI that turns out to be Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). We first meet Deadpool, real name Wade Wilson, in the beginning as part of Huston's recruitment team and he does have a lot of funny one-liners. However, I do think he will be remembered for his origins film that was released earlier this year.

The scene where Logan has his experiment to have adamantium put in is really tense. We see him in a lot of pain and, when the experiment is complete, he escapes after he learns what Stryker really intends to do. In X-Men 2, we know that Wolverine has no memory of what happened to him. At the end of this film, we learn how he lost his memory after an intense fighting scene between Deadpool and Sabretooth.

I do think this film is worth watching if you want to know everything about Wolverine's back story. 

6/10