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Created Apr 28, 2009 09:36PM PST • Edited Apr 28, 2009 09:36PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Wolverine is back and he’s just as badass as ever! After the wreck that was X-Men 3, I was really hesitant on how this film would turn out. Are they just making X-Men movies because they can? Are they going to give it the care that it deserves? Can Hugh Jackman really pull off Wolverine again? The answer to all is a celebratory yes!

   X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a movie made because everyone loves Wolverine. Luckily, they got a group together that could still pull off what was overall a very satisfying movie. There were some flaws to be sure and the ending did not work nearly as well as it could have, but the movie still rocked my face. I saw this movie last night at the World Premiere here in Arizona and loved what I saw.

   The pacing of the flick is a bit slower than you’d expect, but I was thankful for it. We get a chance to get to know the characters and see Wolvie, Victor, Stryker and Kayla all develop pretty decently. The story itself is nothing too amazing or original. Whenever you get superpowers involved, it seems like half the time someone is trying to steal them and use them for military applications (LXG, Hulk, etc.). But it fits with the character of Logan/Wolverine as well as the other x-movies. It is not within comic continuity by any means, but it works. I will do my best to not reveal too much, but there will be some spoilers ahead so if you don’t want to hear anything about the flick, avoid the rest until after you see it this weekend.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   How in the hell Hugh Jackman pulls off Wolverine I will never know. In the comics, Wolverine is short, hairy, Canadian and not entirely attractive. Jackman is over 6 feet tall, Australian and was named People’s Sexiest Man of the Year. Huh?!?! It doesn’t add up, it shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does. Once again Jackman pulls off a stellar performance as Wolverine. By adding in his relationships with Victor (aka Sabretooth) and Kayla Silverfox you get more depth than you have in the past movies.

   Liev Schreiber as Victor was awesome. He’s got the intensity, the size, the look and overall demeanor to pull it off. Tyler Mane was not a good Sabretooth in the first X-Men, but that was not his fault. The character was not given his due respect. This time around, though, Victor is given the screen time, the story and the respect he deserves. This is Wolverine’s greatest enemy. This is the only guy who can give him a run for his money in being the best there is. In the movie Logan and Victor are brothers and their relationship as siblings is very well pulled off. You’ve got two sides of the same coin – Victor embracing the animal and Logan trying to be a man first and always. Their emotional connection is subtle, just as it should be. As Logan walks away from him, a tight voice and a glint in Victor’s eye is all it takes to know that this has a huge effect on him.

   Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox was great. She was able to hold her own and make it believable that she could be Wolverine’s girl. I would change my life and live in the mountains for this girl too.

   Danny Houston was great as Stryker. A perfect lead-in to Cox’s take on the character in X2. It makes sense and you understand why he is doing what he is doing.

   I hate Gambit. I think he is a worthless character brought in for the girls and is of little to no value. In the movie, however, Taylor Kitsch actually delivered a fairly likeable guy. His accent isn’t too annoying like in the cartoons and his power ended up looking pretty damn cool. I still think the character is kinda useless, but I did not hate the guy.

   I wish we could have seen more of Kevin Durrand as Fred Dukes (aka the Blob). The 30 second clip on Yahoo Movies was a great teaser and the movie didn’t give us much more. He was a great little cameo.

   Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson was AWESOME! He is just what we expected – a smartass who can throw down like no other. He’s funny and has a great action sequence at the beginning where he takes on a room full of baddies with just his swords. It looked great with bullets flying and blades swinging and people dying all around. Good stuff and it showed great potential….

   …..and then they turned him into Deadpool. I get what they were trying to do, but it was really poorly executed. Why seal up his mouth with scar tissue? Why have blades coming out of his hands that could never fit in his arms without the loss of movement? It looks goofy as hell. It did, however, lead to a very cool final fight (although it was a bit too similar to the final battle from the Phantom Menace). Don’t like what they did and I think they wasted Ryan’s ability, but it was cool to see. I hope they still try to push some Deadpool solo flicks because that could have been a clone, right? Right? . . . .anyone?

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    The direction of the film was pretty good. Gavin Hood was able to pull off some great action sequences that looked different. The way they were shot felt different and gave us different angles on familiar things. I don’t really know how to explain it, but until the end I think the movie had a very distinct feeling. The end, however, felt rushed and less sincere. Like the execs had too much to do with it.

    I’ve already talked about my disgust for Deadpool, but the design on the other characters was pretty good. Wraith’s teleportation ability looked very different from Nightcrawlers and was pretty cool to see. As he disappeared, he did so in layers – so the last thing you saw a lot of times before he disappeared was his skeleton. The Blob’s makeup also looked really good. The way Victor moved was my favorite. He leapt from place to place like a mountain lion and ran on all fours at certain points. He moved like a big cat and I really like that attention to character.

    There were a few things, however, that really could have been fixed. For example, you can tell when reshots were done because Jackman’s hair and sideburns got shorter all of the sudden. Some special effects shots just looked awful, like not enough time had been spent on them. The best way to describe it is inconsistent.

    The sequence when they pump the adamantium into Wolvie is very off too. Apparently doing that only takes about 30 seconds. Very quick process to do. Deadpool also seemed to have little to no processing time before he was ready to go.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

    Good amount of violence, but not as much blood. Lots of stabbing and cutting, but blades almost always come out clean. There aren’t any blood splatters from bullet wounds or anything else of that nature. It was a lot of fisticuffs and action, but in a pg-13 kinda way.

    Some language, not much. About what you’d hear watching an episode of South Park.

    You get some bare ass action from Jackman as he escapes the facility where he was turned into Wolverine, but no Kayla nudity unfortunately.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Brutal 3.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Fantasy 5.0

    Even if you accept that there are mutants with powers far beyond those of mortal men, this is still a work of fantasy. For example, you pump several hundred pounds of metal into someone’s body and they have no problem walking around after. There were some things that they didn’t spend nearly enough time thinking about and getting around.

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 5.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0