Wolverine is perhaps one of the most, if not the most, favored of the X-Men characters. Throughout the years he's always been the character most explored and written about. He is a man that is constantly battling his inner demons to prevent his animal side from taking over and considering he is nearly indestrutible that makes him a rather dangerous man.

The second X-Men movie directed by Brian Singer is one of the best comic book movies ever made and since that time there was always a desire for a Wolverine movie. Then the horrible third X-Men movie came out and suddenly there was a desire for a GOOD Wolverine movie. One that was rated R, like it should be, would have been good but for marketing reasons they wouldn't do that. These days the studios needs teenagers to go to movies to make money.

So, we finally get our Wolverine movie and it covers his origin. This is a difficult task as over the years Wolverine has gotten more origin stories than can be counted on one hand. Each was explained off as a fake memory implanted by someone with nefarious reasons. Eventually they decided on a somewhat definitive origin story that is the one the movie based from.

At first the movie starts out very strong, the storyline follows the origin story fairly closely and is a strong start. The montage showing Logan and Creed throughout history, always at war, was a nice touch to show how old the two really are. We end with a humorous thought that the two were to be executed by firing squad when Creed attacks an officer and Logan moves to defend him. Surviving the attempted execution brings Stryker into the picture.

At this point everything starts to go downhill.

Logan and Wolverine are recruited into Team X, a mixture of mutants that carry out black operations that only they can complete. The mutants they introduce at this point are mostly based off comic characters but they deviate somewhat with them. Some things are slightly different while others are stupidly different. They change powers around, backgrounds are different and in one case a German is changed to Asian.

After a few violent outcomes to missions Logan decides he can no longer be a part of the team and walks away. He goes to Canada to become a lumberjack and lives with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox, the hottest teacher within three hundred miles. Funny how it works out like that in the movies.

He's happy so, of course, that means someone will come along and ruin it for him.

Creed shows up and kills his girlfriend. Logan is now mad and wants revenge but he can't beat Creed in a fair fight. Which brings the question of why he doesn't just cheat. Anyway, Stryker shows up to make him an offer that would allow him to beat Creed and get his revenge.

Since this is a storyline that's been used since before Shakespeare was born you can probably guess where this is going.

So Stryker offers to coat Logan's entire skeleton in this indestructible metal called adamantium, including his bone claws. It is an extremely painful process that normally no one could survive but Logan's powerful healing factor will allow him to do so. After overhearing Stryker order his memory be wiped, apparently Stryker forgot about his heightened senses, Logan escapes by going through a few conveniently placed doors easily leading him to outside.

Logan gets away after a few innocent people's deaths and vows to continue his quest for revenge.

Up to this point things weren't too bad, a few oddities here and there but for the most part a decent stab at Wolverine's origin.

Things get really, really bad now.

Logan manages to find out that a mutant named Gambit escaped from Stryker's clutches and knows where his base, named The Island, is located. Gambit is hiding by cleverly hanging out in public bars in New Orleans playing poker while openly displaying his abilities. It's not like anybody is looking for him or anything. Plus everybody seems to know who he is anyway, so I'm sure it wasn't difficult for Logan to find him. In fact, it wasn't since Logan found him almost immediately.

A small point about how badly they treated the character of Gambit in this movie. Gambit is a rather popular character and always has been since he was first introduced. A natural thief who has the ability to charge objects with kinetic energy so they explode when thrown. He's a rogue who is out to have fun more than completing the task before him. Overall he's a rather cool character.

In the movie he's a bit silly with abilities that are not from the comic and defy logic. He still has the ability to throw things that explode but there are new abilities that are just not Gambit. He can levitate objects at will, well, as long as they are playing cards. He can climb walls rather swiftly with no explanation. And he can fall from great heights safely as long as he twirls his staff over his head like helicopter blades. Finally, he can cause a huge explosion by slamming his staff into the ground but no worries, he's totally unaffected by said explosion as well as his staff.

All in all, I was severely disappointed in this vision of Gambit. He shouldn't have even been in the movie.

So now they rush along to the ending because they've wasted all this time slapping in as many comic book character cameos as possible without spending much time actually writing a story that makes sense.

Logan's girlfriend is actually alive and is really working for Stryker. Turns out her sister is one of Stryker's prisoners. Another point here, the writers decide that Silverfox's sister is Emma Frost. Take this in for a moment, Silverfox is Native American and Emma Frost is California blond hip chick. They are so obviously sisters.

Also they establish that Scott Summers, who is Cyclops, was also captured by Stryker for his evil experiments. I for one have absolutely no clue why they would have Scott in this movie in this way. It was totally pointless.

So now Logan is running around ruining all of Stryker's plans. So Stryker unleashes Weapon XI, who turns out to be Deadpool. But not the Deadpool from the comics, oh no, since we've changed so much already let's just take a character and totally change him into something else. Deadpool is now the ultimate weapon with powers from several different mutants and should easily kill Logan. But Stryker decides that might not be enough so he plans to shoot Logan in the head with adamantium bullets. It is correctly pointed out to him that would not kill Logan and Stryker admits to this. His plan is to shoot Logan in the head with the bullets to make him forget everything that's happened to him.

That has got to be one of the most stupid movie plot points I have ever heard of.

I was laughing so hard at that point because I really thought it was a joke but it is considered a proper tactic in the movie. I cannot even begin to explain how incredibly stupid this is.

Anyway, after the big fight that was huge on special effects but boring to watch, Logan has indeed been shot in the head with the special bullets that makes him forget almost everything. He runs off with Gambit to new adventures.

First half of the movie, rather nice if you can accept the changes to characters they made. Second half is just a waste of time.