IMDB information
Metacritic reviews
I’m a big fan of the X-Men series of movies and I’m happy to say that, on the whole, this movie delivered pretty much what you’d expect. It was a big budget, action heavy story with hints of the softer side of the main character.
Not being a huge comic book reader, my bad I know, my knowledge of the various X-Men characters is largely pulled from the cartoon series and various articles read on-line. Couple that with, somehow, being able to avoid most of the trailers for this movie, I went into the cinema with no real idea of what to expect, other than the premise being that the movie would explore how Wolverine became the shiny clawed, sarcastic and bitter fighting machine that we all know (and secretly want to be).
I’d never really considered Wolverine as anything other than a mutant with adamantium claws so the opening montage, of Logan and his brother, ravaging their way through several wars helped fill out the realities of the character and his mutant powers. All of which was really little more than filler, of course, before we get to the modern day and the action heats up.
Long story short, Logan joins up a unit of mutants carrying out covert military operations, but soon things get out of hand and, with his brother the main protagonist, Logan decides he’s had enough and disappears. Cut to idyllic new life as a lumberjack, a sexy girlfriend, and a cabin in the wilderness.
Then cut to rather obvious murdering of said girlfriend to lure him back into the fold and, using his rage, getting him to agree to be injected with said shiny metal. With that done and an almost indestructable mutant created, all hell breaks loose. There are some twists and turns but nothing you can’t predict but hey, this isn’t a movie about being clever. This is a movie about action, fighting and mutant super powers.
And boy does it deliver on that front! One of the closing fight scenes is a high paced, mutant powered delight. In fact all of the fight scenes, from start to finish, are carried off with aplomb, the special effects mixing perfectly into the scene. Which makes some of the closing effects, simple ones like overlaying a group of mutant kids onto a backdrop of a forest, for instance, bafflingly bad.
However that’s a minor glitch in a movie which moves along fast enough to keep you engrossed, has some genuinely funny moments, and which delivers what it promises by the bucketload.
My only other complaint is one similar to the other X-Men movies, barring X-Men 3, in that you are suddenly presented with several mutants at once and don’t really get a chance to see them in action. But I guess that’s greedy of me, as there is plenty to see here. In what looks like it’s going to be a summer filled with blockbuster action movies (Transformers 2 & Terminator Chronicles to name two), Wolverine gets the balling roll big time.
