Review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine reminded me of a soda that's been left out overnight. It has the flavor you expect, but with none of the kick. There were so many great scenes, but as a rule they left me wanting. Over all, it was a good movie, but didn't live up to it's potential.

The movie covers everything it promises to cover. It thoroughly explores Wolverine's background. Well, the movie franchise's Wolverine, at least. If you're familiar with Wolverine, Silver Fox, Sabretooth, or well anything X-Men - lets just call this an alternate universe. I could write a whole series of articles on the creative license the movie franchise has taken, but it's easier to look at it as a stand alone story line.

This movie is chalk full of scenes that should have been hard hitting action or drama, but fell short of resonating with the audience. There isn't much more about Wolverine's childhood and military days than the trailers showed. It does fully explore and explain many other important aspects to his character though. The movie explains Wolverine's complicated relationship with Sabretooth. It spends time on his history with Silver Fox. It explains how Wolverine came by his adamantium, memory loss, and even name.

Part of the problem was the way the movie was cut together. There were several shots that seemed to be made for the trailers. They were great in the trailers, but oddly out of place in the middle of the story. For instance, Wolverine's dog tags. When Colonel Stryker offers him his old military dog tags, Wolverine says he wants them to say "Wolverine" instead of his name. At this point, he's strapped down and moments away from receiving his adamantium skeleton. They cut to a shot of the new dog tags being created, then back to Wolverine. Really? They stopped the treatment short to make him new tags? That wasn't handled beforehand? It looked great in the trailers, but detracted from what could have been an intense moment in the film.

A great many scenes had that flat feel to them. There were many times I wanted to feel something. I wanted to feel pumped and excited during the battles. Maybe if there wasn't so much mid-fight down time. I wanted to feel heart warmed during tender scenes between Wolverine and Silver Fox. If only the cameras could get both of them in frame at the same time more often. I desperately wanted to feel sympathy for Deadpool when he was introduced as Weapon XI. I wasn't quite given the chance though. It seemed like the producers were so caught up in explaining things that they forgot about drawing the audience in.

In spite of letting me down, it was still a good movie. Not great. Just good. It did explain what needed explaining. It was well cast. The actors did a smashing job, for the most part. Their performances saved the movie. In the explanations, they threw in enough fan favorite tidbits to make me smile often. Did you ever wonder where Wolverine got his jacket? Ever want to see Professor X walk? If you spend a couple hours of your time on this creative piece of fantasy, you will be satisfied. I recommend it for weekend matinee, but I wouldn't recommend paying full price.