With an estimated $87 million opening weekend, Wolverine was able to dish it out despite the unfinished leaked version hitting the net with mostly negative publicity. After the X-Men movies, Wolverine gets his own movie prequel about his origin that we’ve seen many time in X-Men 1 and 2. That means all four X-Men movies have Wolverine as the prominent role with Cyclops being pushed to the side as a lackey, along with many other X-Men. We all love the lil’ canuck, I get it.

Wolverine’s an animalistic mutant with super duper healing factor and adamantium (strongest metal known to man!) claws. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we get to see Logan, aka Wolvie, as a sickly feminine kid, who grows up to fight in the Civil War, World Wars, and Vietnam War with his best bro Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth.

Wolverine and Sabretooth gets into trouble during Vietnam War and is sentenced to a firing squad, but that didn’t work. They are greeted by Colonel William Stryker (Danny Huston), who offers them a chance to join Team X, a special unit consisting of mutants including a hobbit, a rapper, and a smartass. Wolverine decides later on that Team X isn’t his cup of tea and decides on a life of peace with his new girlfriend. But his past will soon come to haunt him.

The movie was action packed and exciting. Hugh Jackman is a good Wolverine and I enjoyed Wolverine and Sabretooth as a duo. Ryan Reynolds as Wade, aka Deadpool, gets the laughs in what little screen time he has. will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas as Wraith is a cool southern cowboy and makes his debut in acting in a big Hollywood production. Seeing the Cajun, Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), flipping his cards and twirling his staff is an X-Men fan’s wet dream.

Now we get to some major flaws and minor nitpickings. The story is pretty solid, but could have been a lot better if the movie had better character development. For example, we’re thrown into the movie and we see Wolverine and Sabretooth already friends and then when Sabretooth goes rogue, I didn’t feel the impact it should have had if Wolverine and Sabretooth actually had a genuine good moment together other than being on the same side of war. Maybe a moment where both of them are getting drunk together and picking up on chicks would be nice (I know you guys want to see that).

This is the same for when Wolverine’s a lumberjack living in peace with his girlfriend, Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Many years later after he ditches Team X, we see Wolverine and Silverfox together and in love and we’re suppose to buy it. When she gets killed by Sabretooth (the reason why Wolverine accepts the Weapon X project), you don’t really have enough invested to care. For a movie with a basic revenge storyline, you have to have some emotion attachment to Wolverine and the people in his life.

The biggest complaint that I know fans will have is what they did to Deadpool. After the movie ended, a Deadpool fan behind me said to his friends, “What the hell did they do to Deadpool?!” As for me, it didn’t affect me that much for what they were trying to do with the story.

I didn’t have a problem with them trying to connect this movie to the first X-Men movie, but I did have a problem with Professor X’s cheesy computer-generated face to make him appear younger. It looks too weird, with him smiling like a creepy old…I mean young man.

One more thing, the special FX was a hit and miss. Some were cool like Cyclops’ optic blast, but it seems that Wolverine’s claws look more cg than ever. It really bugged me more than the first X-Men movie, and that came out almost a decade ago.

I still enjoyed Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. The character development was non-existent, but it’s cool to see what Wolverine went through in his life before he got his amnesia. At least it’s better than the Bret Ratner version. That’s not saying much is it?

Grade: C+

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