So this is it! My first ever movie review for my brand new Movie Blog *holds for applause*. So I thought what better way to start off my blog than with the kick off to this year's testosterone filled summer, X-men Origins: Wolverine. Well it turned out to be not much of a kick off for me unfortunately.

The film chronicles the life of James Logan Howlett, aka Wolverine, (Hugh Jackman) as he deals with his mutant powers alongside his brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreibler) as they slowly age through history fighting through several major wars where they are eventually discovered by Col. William Stryker whom asks them to join his special team of mutants. Eventually Wolverine gets disgusted by the atrocities the group commits to some innocents and quits. He then tries to live a normal life in Canada with his lover Kayla. After Kayla is killed by Victor in anger towards Logan for leaving the group, Logan goes mad with rage and vows for revenge but is defeated easily the first time he faces Sabertooth head to head. So Logan volunteers for a special program headed by William Stryker to graft adamantium onto his skeleton so that he could take his revenge on Sabertooth but little does he know but there is a deeper conspiracy behind this program and Stryker is at the heart of it.

Now first off, let me say that I was and still am a big fan of the X-men films directed by Bryan Singer (X-men 1&2). They were great films that inspired what has now been a constant stream of comic book films every year and also helped bring comic books more into the spotlight where it can be appreciated by everybody and not just for 40 year old virgins playing D&D with their friends in the bottom of their mother's basement. It showed that comic books can have a deeper meaning than just people dressing up in costumes fighting crime and evil. That's what I really appreciated about the X-men films in that it addressed the human concerns and themes of prejudice towards minorities and how we must overcome hate for those who are different from us. But things went very wrong when X-men 3 was taken over by Bret Ratner, because it strayed away from these important themes and the film just became a shallow mess of action and CGI, I mean I love watching Wolverine take out henchmen after henchmen but I also want to have a story too.

That's really what it comes down to in the end with this movie in that it lacks little to zero depth or story. See, I like my movies like I like my women, Yes I would prefer if my women were hot and attractive (flashy action scenes, cool CGI, boobies) but in the end I prefer more personality and smarts over that (story, character depth, dialogue, etc). So basically if “Wolverine” were a woman, it would be a cheap $5 whore. This film is almost entirely action and not just stylized action but cliché action (walking/running from explosions, over abundance of explosions really) and it really has no story at all.

One of the other problems I have is that all the new characters they bring in like Deadpool, John Wraith, Gambit and The Blob have about two lines of dialogue and are only alive in the movie for a grand total of maybe 3 minutes during the film before their killed off, making their appearance pretty much meaningless. The sad part is all these characters have potential for depth and/or entertainment (Deadpool, read his comics) but each time just as you get the feeling they are about to address something interesting about the character or develop them further or just let them go off and have their role, they get killed off!

Now to be frank, I can hear some of you now going “Hey man, it's a summer film it's supposed to be shallow.” Aha but it even fails in that respect. To me it doesn't even do well in terms of action. The action scenes get repetitive throughout the film and the amount of explosion in the films, especially the walking away from the helicopter exploding scene, almost made me feel like this was directed by Michael Bay.

But let's be fair the film is not all bad. Hugh Jackman, despite working with a bad script, keeps up the bad ass persona that is Wolverine and he always will be Wolverine in the history of film. Surprisingly too, I liked Liev Schreibler's Sabertooth more than I expected. I mean despite the fact that he had a one sided character he was still pretty menacing and a very convincing villain and I liked his portrayal a lot better than the first Sabertooth in X-men 1 (Though physically the first guy looks more like the actual character).

Uggh... The end the movie is a big mess of flashy actions scenes and Hugh Jackman snarling, and it's a real shame because you know Jackman's capable of better than this and you know his Wolverine persona is also capable of better, but it's so wasted here in a movie that is supposed to explain how a man, who went through several eras of human history, 4 major wars, did things that are so unspeakable to some, went through a terrible experiment to get to where he is now, and in the end because of that developed into the man, the beast, the mutant that is Wolverine. All that has potential for some insightful character development right? Unfortunately it seems that X-men Origins: Wolverine will just have to settle for being just another generic, shallow, testosterone-pumped film of the summer than be something of more interest.

All in all avoid this one.