Cut To Pieces

As regular readers of this blog already know--Every time I saw bits of footage from X-Men Origins: Wolverine--I would come away feeling not all that excited...Which seemed strange since I generally liked all 3 films from the X-Men trilogy,

Given those feelings though and the whole leak thing--I was not planing to see this one in theaters...But an opportunity presented itself--and I thought "What The Heck"...My instincts though proved very much corect...



The film opens in 1845 where a young James Logan (Troye Sivan) makes 2 shocking discoveries about his family bloodline, First that he has a brother (Michael-James Olsen)--and that they both have strange mutant powers to heal at a rapid rate...

We see the mutant siblings battling side by side through two world wars and Vietnam conflict-- where they are sentenced to death for killing a commanding officer...Having obviously survived...Logan (Hugh Jackman) and his brother Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth, Liev Schreiber) then are recruited to join a top-secret government task force.

But as their targets begin to include innocent civilians, Logan 's conscience forces him to flee to the Canadian Rockies, where he builds a home with a schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).

Informed by his old commanding officer William Stryker (Danny Huston) that the old team is being killed off one at a time.

Logan is devastated when Victor finds and kills Kayla.

A vengeful, Logan agrees to take part in a dangerous experiment that will fuse his bones with a powerful metal alloy called adamantium, which makes him virtually indestructible and gives him the strength needed to defeat his powerful brother. Betrayed by Stryker, Logan (now Wolverine) sets out to find Victor...

Along the way, he meets and is joined by fellow mutants like John Wraith (Will i Am) and Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit, Taylor Kitsch). Ultimately Wolverine must battle with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds)



We know going in the end of the movie lead into the events of Bryan Singer's first X-Men flick--and while there's action aplenty here--the narrative getting there is a disjointed mess most of the time.

Director Gavin Hood, writers David Benioff and Skip Woods along with editors Nicolas De Toth and Megan Gill contributed to the "cut and paste" feel of things At one point--I even felt like I was watching a scene from executive producer Richard Donner's Superman--as Logan is taken in by an elderly couple who live on a farm. Not sure if that's from Wolverine mythos--if it is apologies--if not then it just felt like another excuse to see more of Jackman's physique then we need to.

Mutants are introduced and then quickly dealt out of play--So that we can see the next action set piece.

Jackman saves himself by just being Wolverine--I thought Huston was great as Stryker. Schreiber as Victor/Sabretooth was OK but I wanted to see how he becomes Tyler Mane's Sabertooth from X1

There is one nice surprise near the end of the movie but by then...A sequel is already being planned as well as a spin-off for Deadpool....Better luck next time.