Snikt!

Let's be clear: Wolverine should be in an R-rated movie. There should be blood, flying limbs, and expletives. He shouldn't have feelings. Alas, that's not what we got with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That, however, is not necessarily an indictment of this X-Men prequel, which is actually pretty good at what it does, though certainly not the best (har har).

The movie opens confusingly, with a young Logan realizing he, in fact, has bone claws that he can use to gouge people with. There's some thing about a guy not being his father, or whatever, but it is never really mentioned again. What it does serve to do is establish that Wolvie and Sabertooth (played by Liv Schrieber) are brothers. It then moves into a particularly cool montage of the mutant siblings fighting in every American war since 1860 up to Vietnam. After some gruesome displays by Victor (Sabertooth), they are sentenced to be executed by firing squad. And when that doesn't work (you know, the mutant healing factor thing), they are put on a mutant special forces team, led by Colonel Stryker who is sadly not played by Bryan Cox.

If this sounds like a lot of plot, it is. There's a bunch more, but it is all crammed into the first 20 minutes. The rest is your basic revenge story. Once Logan is unwilling to participate in the questionable morals Stryker demands, he leaves the team and becomes a logger in the Canadian Rockies where he, obviously, falls in love. And, just as obviously, Victor ends up killing her, thrusting Logan back into the action.

The best part of the movie is when the adamantium is grafted into Logan's skeleton. It is really only here that he displays the raw, animalistic side of Wolverine. The rest is basically a mish mash of the X-Men movies, complete with detaining mutants and attempting to rob them of their powers. It's been done before, and better. My big issue with the movie was that it didn't feel any different than X-Men 2. Sure, the other X-Men are (mostly) absent, but the tone and style is almost identical.

This may have to do with Hugh Jackman. I like Jackman. Loved The Prestige, he was outstanding in The Fountain. I'm down with Hugh. I just don't think he's the right actor for Wolverine. First, he is not savage or aggressive enough. The man is a Tony Award winning actor who can ballroom dance for God's sake. There are brief moments in the movie when that side comes out, but those are few and far between. The second is, let's face it, Jackman is a Greek god. The man is ripped eight ways to Sunday. They find excuses to have him take his shirt off. That ain't Wolverine. Wolverine is short, scrappy, and stocky. He's supposed to be like an actual wolverine. I can't really think of a big name actor who could play this role, but Jackman just isn't quite right. Really, if this wasn't "Wolverine", I might have enjoyed it even more. Jackman makes Logan his own, which is what you are supposed to do as an actor, but it just doesn't evoke the comic book version of the character.

Two other big problems: Gambit and the special effects. Gambit has always been my favorite X-Man. Cool Cajun accent, awesome powers, wanted to bang Rogue in the tv show. In this, good Lord. The actor is so forgettable I don't even care about going to IMDB to find out his name. He doesn't even have an accent. It's just bad. Worse, though, are some of the special effects. The qaulity varies widely from looking absolutely amazing to not fit for a Sci Fi movie of the week. It is amazing that a blockbuster movie could have such shoddy effects. In a movie like this, that kind of thing really hurts.

If all of this makes it seem like I hated the movie, I'm probably just a bad writer. I really enjoyed it. I would put it second in the X-Men franchise behind X2. It certainly won't win any awards, and there are some serious issues, but overall it's a fun night at the movies. The helicopter chase scene is the best piece of action cinema I have seen since Dark Knight. If Marvel had been willing to break with the X-Men franchise and really do this thing right, I think there was enough here to be amazing. But when you have to make $250 million, it doesn't pay to make Wolvie into a whirlwind of blood and guts. However, If you like comic book movies, it's a must see Bub.