At long last, the official TOC review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The biggest delay in writing this was simply knowing what to say. For one, I don’t feel well enough informed about the comic book origin of Wolverine to speak to the film’s accuracy. Second, I had trouble determining just what it was about the movie that didn’t feel right to me. While there’s been no change on the first point, just yesterday I realized the answer to the second.

Last year was a breakthrough year for comic book movies: Iron Man, Hancock, Incredible Hulk, Punisher: War Zone, The Dark Knight (which I don’t even think of as comic book). These movies raised the level of what can be expected from the genre and there was a lot of talk that we wouldn’t be going back to the old days. So, it wasn’t that Wolverine was bad, it just didn’t live up to this new level of comic book film. It was, however, on par with previous X-films.

CONS:

Like previous X-films, Wolverine tried too hard to fit too many characters into too short of a time frame. This meant that many character cameos were lost on the common viewer or left fans disappointed. Gambit didn’t even fake a Creole accent. As a movie watcher obsessed with continuity, I had trouble with Sabretooth and Striker bearing no resemblance to their previous incarnations. XI/Deadpool!?! What was that?

PROS:

It was wicked cool. The childhood and war scenes were great and did so much to create a rich history in a short time frame. It breathed new life into a struggling franchise (though I never understood the beef with X3). It created numerous new jumping off points including the previously discussed First Class as well as a rumored Wolverine sequel.

SUMMARY:

All in all, it’s a good, entertaining movie. Definitely worth catching on the big screen and own on DVD, but don’t hold your breath for any Academy Awards here.

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