X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

Throughout his history, Wolverine has always been a bit of a schizophrenic. One day he’s a lovable cigar-chomping scamp, and the next he’s a stone-cold killer. Of course, this is somewhat forgivable since the character has been around in comic-book form since 1974 and underwent numerous overhauls. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, however, it’s the movie that’s schizophrenic, and this results in an uneven film that’s never entirely sure of what it wants to be.

The story starts out on a promising note, revealing James/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Victor/Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) to be brothers. They make a pact to always stick together, and we see them honor this agreement by fighting alongside each other in the Civil War, World War I, World War II and Vietnam (I guess they took a break during Korea). After Victor kills a superior officer in Vietnam, both men face a firing squad. To the surprise of everyone but the brothers, they survive. It’s at this point that they’re visited by William Stryker (Danny Huston), a military man who offers them a fresh start on a very special team. You see, both men have mutant abilities: James has claws; Victor has deadly, retractable fingernails; and both are highly resistant to wounds and aging.

They accept and join a team consisting of: Fred Dukes (Kevin Durand), an indestructible mountain of a man; John Wraith (will.i.am), a teleporter; Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), a master marksman; Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a sword-wielding killer; and Chris Bradley (Dominic Monaghan), a mutant who has power over electrical devices. Each man answers to Stryker, but James becomes disillusioned during a mission to Nigeria when the team is ordered to kill innocent villagers. While the others don’t hesitate to comply, our hero leaves in disgust.

The movie picks up six years later, with James happily in love with a schoolteacher named Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) and working as a lumberjack in the wilds of Canada. But nothing can last forever. The rest of X-Men Origins: Wolverine delves into how James became the man known as Wolverine and his vendetta against both William Stryker and Victor Creed.

The first half of the film actually shows a lot of promise. It’s the simple tale of a man seeking to repress his inner demons through love and forgiveness. When that love is taken away, he fills his heart with rage and goes on a quest for revenge. The David Benioff and Skip Woods script would’ve been wise to stop there, but it doesn’t. No, the second half of the movie treats us to random battles, characters constantly changing sides, and plenty of stuff blowing up. We even get to find out what really happened on Three Mile Island back in 1979. Oh, goody.

Director Gavin Hood packs in so much stuff that you’ll feel like you just pushed away from the table after a particularly gluttonous Thanksgiving dinner. New villains appear out of nowhere, and the final showdown isn’t even really the final showdown. To further complicate matters, a couple of “extra” scenes are tacked on after the credits begin to roll. These seem to serve absolutely no purpose other than to make paying customers read the names of the best boy and gaffer.

With a better script and more competent direction, X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have been something special. The acting talent was certainly there, as Jackman and Schreiber seemed entirely comfortable with their characters. Throw in a nuanced performance from Danny Huston as Stryker and a better-than-expected debut from will.i.am, and one can only be disappointed by the end result.

X-Men Origins: Magneto is scheduled for a 2011 release. Let’s hope the minds behind that project concentrate more on a quality story and less on random, shaky action scenes. Otherwise, the X-Men franchise may be damaged so badly that even a healing factor won’t be able to save it.