“Snikt.” A sound that many a comic book fan knows and all of the X-Men fans have come to love. It is the sound the fearsome mutant Wolverine’s claws make as they are sliding forth from beneath his skin. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) we learn the story behind the mystery that is Wolverine’s life before finding Professor X and the rest of the X-Men.
The movie opens in 19th century Canada on a feverish boy named James (who we later find out will become Wolverine.) being comforted by his father and friend Victor. After a mishap and revelation later that night, Victor (who later becomes Saber Tooth in X: 1, 2 and 3) and James, who has just discovered he is a mutant, runaway.
Even though the movie over simplifies some of the more complex stories and over complicates the simpler facts of the movie, it is still a fun action-packed ride and sticks fairly close to the true origin of Wolverine.
They also handled the timeline quite well, considering Wolverine has been alive for well over a hundred years. Using time lapses and montages effectively, they got the point across that many traumatic incidences made Wolverine and Saber Tooth (Liev Schreiber) into the mutants they are.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine answers many of the questions about how he lost his memories, how the Adamantium was grafted to his bones and how he lost all of his memories.
The parts however that stole the show where the scenes that Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) appeared in, the actor did a fantastic job of capturing the snarky personality that Gambit has in the comic as well as the voice and fighting style that he has. He also has one of the best exchanges of dialog with Wolverine; Wolverine asks if Gambit was in fact Gambit, to which Gambit replies “Do I owe you money?”
Other than some shotty graphics toward the end where Professor X makes a 2 minute cameo in CGI form, which makes Professor X look like an alien who took a 30 second look at a photo of Patrick Stuart and tried to look like him, it was a pretty good movie. Fun in that I want to see stuff blow up and see some crazy fight scenes kind of way. It almost made up for X 3: The Last Stand…almost.
