Wednesday, 20 May 2009 00:00 | and posted in Movie Reviews
I thought the original X-Men trilogy was great (and definitely recommend watching them); however, the films do leave a lot of unanswered questions about the characters, especially one of the most loved characters Wolverine. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the first of a new series of movies exploring the back-stories of characters from the X-Men universe and it sets out to answer these questions. With a chance of finding out what really happened to Wolverine, I was not going to miss this film.
The film starts in the 1840s with Wolverine as a child (before he got his metal claws) and his early years of life are summed up with him and his half-brother Victor (later to become Sabretooth) fighting in just about every war from the American Civil War to the Vietnam War.
The storyline of this movie seems a bit haphazard at first and we wonder: what has this got to do with anything other than just saying ‘Wolverine was here'? But then we meet William Stryker and a whole host of new characters and the question answering begins.
By the end of the movie the various strands of the story are cleverly pulled together and tied up nicely. The only downside is that we already know from the X-Men Trilogy that Logan loses his memory and so this great film ends with the main character being unable to remember a single minute of it.
Luckily for the rest of us, we can remember all the great quotable lines and amazing superhero moves. Of all the new characters Gambit is the most impressive with his card shooting and unique power. Also worth a mention are Victor Creed and Wade Wilson, both excellent and intriguing new characters.
For lovers of the X-Men comics, the other X-Men films or anything Marvel in general then you will love this film. The storyline is different from your average superhero movie, but the film is better for it. As for the characters, the acting and the special effects, the film really is excellent. I would give it 5 out of 5.