X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It’s like a beefcake buffet at the Cineplex this week! They are serving up Matthew McConaughey and his Amazingly Shirtless Chest in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past as you approach the carving station. In the back, on the discount table, Channing Tatum and his Abs of Steel are leftover from last week’s Fighting. Then, featured as the daily special, Hugh Jackman shows off his pecs for the ladies who like ‘em a little hairy in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Jackman stars as James Logan – a practically indestructible mutant with boney claws that pop out of his hands when the fisticuffs start to fly. This has served him well for over almost 150 years as he and his fellow mutant brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber), have fought in just about every war throughout history (always on the side of the good guys).

They have been recruited to join a special military task force of other mutants led by William Stryker (Danny Huston), who is in pursuit of a strange metal compound that has been found in Africa. Of course, Logan starts to question Stryker’s methods and intentions, while other task force members start to enjoy the violence a little too much, so our hero takes off to Canada (where the ladies appreciate a hairy dude).

Can Logan live in peace, or will his past come back to haunt him?

Will Stryker ever find him?

Does anyone think we would have a movie if Logan lived happily ever after?

Director Gavin Hood and writers David Benioff and Skip Woods take the very safe, but unimaginative and boring road in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Did they feel boxed in by the need to explain how these events led to everything we already know about Wolverine from the X-Men movies? Did they have to follow some sort of strict mathematical formula of required explosions, cliché plot twists and shots of Jackman without his shirt on?

The biggest disappointment in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is its predictability in both story and action. No twist is going to shock you if you have ever seen a movie before in your life. You can figure out the pattern of action in every chase sequence and explosion a scene before they start, and, worst of all, the special effects just aren’t good enough for a modern summer blockbuster.

Wolverine’s adamantium claws, the item as synonymous with him as Superman’s cape or Batman’s Batmobile, have a strange color to them that makes them obviously appear to be digital creations. The claws looked better in first three movies, and that was with lesser technology! With this distraction, it’s hard to get excited about the fight scenes.

Then, X-Men Origins: Wolverine becomes too cartoonish for its own good. With movies like The Dark Knight and Watchmen seeking new depths and complexities in character development, motivations and story, this movie feels a bit too silly, especially since it is not making a commitment to being campy. It’s stuck in between dark and campy. Luckily, Jackman makes the most of his moments to snap off a quick retort or one-liner, so he saves us from rolling our eyes and throwing popcorn at the screen.

If you are a big X-Men fan, you will want to stick around through the end credits to see some additional scenes. Much like the rest of the movie, they might not rock your world, but you will kick yourself if you miss them.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is rated PG-13 for violence, intense sequences of action and some partial nudity