Film Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Director Gavin Hood

Being a huge fan of the X-Men comics and films, I was quite worried when I saw this film in production, as I was skeptical that it could be pulled off. However, as more was reveled about the film and I saw that they had obtained great actors like, Hugh Jackman (wolverine in the other X-Men films, he had to be in, or there would of been no chance) and Liev Schreiber. My fears started to slowly disappear, after keeping tabs on the development of the film over the months and watching the action packed trailers, this film looked to be building up to be quite an epic and worthy prequel the other films. After just recently watching the film at the cinema, here is what I have to say.

The film opens up with two young boys, one in bed and appearing to be feeling sick and the other sat there, with an evil look on his face whilst carving a symbol onto the wooden table beside him; with his long beast like nails. After a few moments I realised that the film was paying homage to a recent comic strip on about early Wolverine, I was glad to see this nod to the comics. Next we see is the reveling of our characters and their connections to one another, shortly followed by a well edited opening title sequence showing Wolverine and Sabertooth (referred in throughout the film by his original name, Victor Creed) in a selection of different wars throughout time; until we are brought up to the mid to late 70's.

Then the films starts and we are shown a crazed Victor Creed in a war and about to butcher a young woman, when told to stop by another soldier, he changes his attention to him. When the rest of the soldiers attempt to stop him Wolverine steps in to protect him, both facing the punishment for their crime, death. After the unknowing soldiers realise that they can't be killed, they decide that the two of them should be thrown into some hole for the rest of eternity. This doesn't stay for long, as the arrival of evil baddie from X-Men 2 appears, William Stryker. As the film then starts to follow the comic story lines, we begin to see the formation of a team completely opposite to the X-Men, a bunch of violent mutant mercenaries, all working under the guidance of the sinister William Stryker.

The majority of the film after this takes it course and we are shown the two brothers splitting up after the blow out in one of the teams operations. A few years pass Wolverine sets up a nice life style, soon to be disturbed by his mad brother, Creed. Eventually leading him to signing up for the mutant X programme, which is to have the newly found compound Adamantium fused to his skeleton, to become strong enough to kill Creed. After this has happened, the rest of the film is high action punching journey of revenge, introducing a few familiar faces from the X-Men universe. The film is quite clearly leading up to a huge action packed climax, with a few twists and turns thrown in.

All in all the film ends of a good note, filling in the gaps quite nicely for the other films. The film throughout had a decent enough storyline, the acting between Jackman and Schreiber was brilliant and finally the special effects and fight scenes were excellent. If you want to watch a film which doesn't require too much thinking and more of just action eye candy, then this is the film for you. I give this film a strong 3/5.