CINEMA: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

In which Logan ditches the other ‘original’ X-Men to hang out with a whole new bunch of mutants. In fact, this is a prequel to the other X-Men movies, exploring how Logan (Hugh Jackman) was turned into the unbeatable wolfman with adamantium talons through a series of experiments at a top-secret military base.

The man in charge, William Stryker (Danny Huston), has assembled a crack team of mutant mercenaries, including Logan and his brother Victor (Liev Schreiber), to carry out missions impossible. While Victor (aka Sabretooth) glories in the killing involved, Logan grows to hate it and after one bloodbath too many walks out on the group. He loses himself in a new romance with Kayla (Lynn Collins) at a hideaway in the hills, knowing that at some point his past will come back to haunt him. So when Victor comes to call, Logan knows the game is up and has to track down his old mutant buddies in order to get back at the man he believes has wrecked his life.

From here the plot goes a bit AWOL as subterfuge and bluff bring us to the point where the feuding brothers must lay down their differences in order to fight the uber-mutant Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) atop one of the giant cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. This proves to be the set piece of the movie and the special effects are years ahead of those seen in the original X-Men movie. Fans of the comic series will also be pleased to know the character of Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) finally gets to make his cinematic debut here and very impressive he is too with his lightning rod antics.

But, is the movie any good? It’s certainly entertaining and there’s plenty of dry humour from Jackman, who seems to be playing Wolverine less as a tortured soul these days and more as a perplexed slice of beefcake. This is basically a series of explosive fight and action sequences tenuously threaded together by a very leaky plot. But if you like big booms and bangs and awesome special effects this will do nicely until Terminator comes along.

Dee Pilgrim