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Wolverine Origin, Involved Storyline

The Commuter

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

by Aaron Boich



“X-men Origins: Wolverine” kicks off the summer blockbuster season. Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine, is now entitled to an obligatory buck-naked scene due to his recently established sex-icon status, but of course Marvel would never condone a level of phallic nudity commensurate with the recent graphic novel adaptation, “Watchmen.” Wolverine is, of course, PG-13 for, among other reasons, what raters are calling “some partial nudity.”

“Wolverine” is a respectable prequel, far better than the Star Wars pre-trilogy fiasco, but perhaps not as much an improvement as the Batman prequels. The movie contains what one might expect: copious mutants, elaborate melee, minimal blood, and numerous explosions. The film is an original script, piecing together a mysterious chronology never before revealed in the graphic novels.

The film begins with a brief pre-credit sequence of the young years of Jimmy (aka Logan or Wolverine) and Victor Creed (aka Sabertooth) (Liev Schreiber), and as the credits fly by the two covenant “brothers” fight alongside one another in various wars. They run into trouble in Vietnam fighting for the United States military. After being courtmartialed and shot by a firing squad, their extraordinary powers of regeneration are revealed. Shortly thereafter, they are promoted to a special forces team by the covert military operative William Stryker (Danny Huston). In Africa, they fight alongside other mutants in order to procure a secret metal, but Wolverine is appalled by their brutally indiscriminate methods. He abandons the team and goes to live in the Canadian Rockies.

Jumping ahead six years later, Logan is happily romancing the school teacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) and working as a logger. Stryker appears one day to tell Logan that he might be in danger. Ex-team members are being targeted. Victor is apparently planning his revenge.

For the first half of the movie, the characters appear to have little depth. They act without much apparent motivation, especially Victor. However, the second half of the movie sheds light on these incongruities. “Wolverine” aptly depicts Logan’s complex identity struggles. Is he supposed to embrace his animalistic tendencies? The story takes Logan to the place where he no longer knows who he can trust. With a lover who has special powers of hypnotic persuasion, can even she be trusted? The complex power struggle of mutant politics is just emerging during the second half of film.

Fans will appreciate that Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) has been given a significant role in the movie, too bad his Cajun accent is pathetic. He partners with Wolverine to free a group of mutants from a secret island base. It is there that Stryker is planning to create a super mutant with the combined powers of many other mutants. The result is Weapon XI (Scott Adkins).

“Wolverine” has a lot going for it, but is disappointing in one crucial area. Apart from the climactic battle scene, the martial art cinematography is lacking. Like many American-made movies, the action cinematography is choppy, opting to change camera angles so often that viewers have a hard time seeing what’s really going on.

Thankfully, the movie incorporates other kinds of interesting action scenes, and the storyline is intriguing. The character development is better than average, but the movie lacks the charm of the popular series “Heroes.” The movie sets a good precedent for the origin movies to follow. Overall, “Wolverine” is sure to please fans of the X-Men trilogy.

3.5 stars out of 5

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