X-men Origins: Wolverine Review

The basic plot of this film can be summed up as two mutant brothers, Logan and Victor, born 200 years ago, suffer childhood trauma and have only each other to depend on. Basically, they're fighters and killers, living from war to war through U.S. history. In modern times, a U.S. colonel, Stryker, recruits them and other mutants as commandos. Logan quits and becomes a logger, falling in love with a local teacher. When Logan refuses to rejoin Stryker's crew, the colonel sends the murderous Victor. Logan now wants revenge.

Most of X-Men Origin’s version of “Weapon X,” the iconic comics storyline where Wolverine gets his adamantium skeleton, is pretty terrible, but Jackman’s fury after his transformation into an unstoppable killing machine is terrifying. Comics’ Wolverine often flies into what’s referred to as “berserker rage,” a concept that sounds pretty badass on the page, but could look mighty foolish onscreen. Jackman screams so much in the X-Men franchise that it’s become something of an internet meme, but in individual moments, he convincingly evokes the character’s torment and anger in a way that I, as a regular comics reader, didn’t think was possible before the first X-Men movie came out.