X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Up in the Northwest Territories in Canada little James Howlett (Troye Sivan) is sick. His friend (or servant I'm not quite sure) Victor Creed (Michael-James Olsen) is there also when James' dad checks up on him. Victor's dad storms in and kills James' dad which makes James go crazy and bone claws spring forth and he kills his father's murderer. Before he dies he tells James a secret, he is actually James' father. James runs away and Victor goes with him, saying they are brother and they need to take care of each other.  In the montage that follows we see Jimmy and Victor grow up (Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber) and fight in war after war until Victor kills his commanding officer and Jimmy protects him, but they both end up in a firing squad which doesn't kill them because they both have a regenerative power, so they are thrown in a cell. They are busted out by Stryker (Danny Hudson) who recruits them for a special ops team. With them are Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), John Wraith (Will i Am), Fred Dukes (Kevin Durand), David North, or Agent Zero (Daniel Henney) and Bradley (Dominic Monaghan). Together they go into Africa after a meteorite, but when it goes south Jimmy leaves.

Six years later Jimmy (now Logan) is living back up in Canada as a logger with his wife Kayla (Lynn Collins). He is visited by Stryker who tells him that someone is hunting down the old team, both Bradley and and Wade are dead. Logan tells him to get lost and then Kayla is killed by Victor. Logan hunts him down but can't beat him so he goes to Stryker. In a secret lab he gets adamantium (the meteorite from before) pumped into him which makes him practically unstoppable. While in  the tank he hears something about an experiment and an island and finally figures out that Stryker was behind Kayla's death.

So Logan sets off and finds John and Fred who tells him that Stryker is doing experiments on mutants on 'the island'. Fred knows only one person who has ever escaped the island: Remy LeBeau, called Gambit (Taylor Kitsch). Logan and John find him, but Victor has followed them and kills John. So now it is Wolverine and Gambit who go to the island.

There is this really annoying scene when it turns out that Kayla isn't dead because she actually works for Stryker because he has her sister. Anyway Wolverine frees the captured mutants and fights the newest experiment Wade, now Weapon XI (Scott Adkins). Surprisingly Victor helps him, saying that no one is allowed to kill Logan except for him, so together they defeat Weapon XI, only Stryker is still around. He shoots Wolverine in the head with adamantium bullets which causes him to forget everything and then he wanders off.

I have two problems with this movie. One being the Kayla storyline. It was fine, an actual romantic storyline that did not detract from an action movie and then they go and ruin it in a very cliché way. I can sum it up very nicely. Bad Guy: "Haha, fool she was working for me!" Woman: "It's true but I really do love you!" Hero: "You've lied to me in the past but now I'm sure you are telling me the truth!" Blah blah blah, always the same.

Secondly: Gambit. I was super excited when they finally put him in an X-Men movie, because he is my all-time favourite character and they totally miscast him. I have nothing against Kitsch as an actor but he did not capture the essence or the accent that makes Gambit Gambit.  Failure!

Besides those two small things (I say small because Gambit was in all of three scenes in the movie) the movie was awesome. It was excellently acted and the plot made sense and flowed nicely and none of the continuity was ruined from the first three movies. (Coral: except that, as far as what we saw, Victor does not lose his memories, but in the first movie he doesn't seem to recognize Logan. And Scott, who was captured by Victor here, also doesn't seem to recognize Victor.) So well done. Just recast Gambit for the next one.

Grade: 7/10