I've been watching movies. Many, many movies. It occurs to me that I could reinstitute "Reviews in Brief" with the movies I've been watching and comics I've been reading. So here goes:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is basically the life story of Logan (Hugh Jackman), from his childhood in Canada to the time he falls in with William Stryker (Danny Huston), first as part of a special ops force composed almost entirely of mutants and then as one of Stryker's "experiments" at Weapon X: Wolverine is Weapon 10. When the final treatment is completed -- laminating his skeleton with adamantium -- he escapes and manages to find some sort of peace working as a lumberjack and living with Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).
Then he gets news that the members of his old team are being killed off -- by none other, as it turns out, than his brother, Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber). Then Victor kills Kayla and the die is cast.
This one is more engaging than I had expected it to be. Although it's not a particularly fast-paced film, it's tight enough that it's easy to stay engaged. Performances are more than capable, especially Schreiber as Victor: he has the particularly thankless task of portraying a character who is mostly a homicidal maniac, except for the parts that still recognize some feeling for his brother, and he delivers.
Special effects, compared to the later (chronologically) X-Men films are somewhat restrained, but then, the whole story is less comic book than the later films. It's a much more human story. Fortunately, people will always take precedence over gimmicks, at least for me.
I've sort of avoided the Wolverine spin-offs, even though X-Men are one of my favorite superhero teams, mostly because of the fan noise. I may reconsider.
Small bonus: Taylor Kitsch has a small but pivotal role as Gambit, which prompted me to order John Carter. We'll see it was justified.
For complete credits, see the listing at IMDb.
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