Wolverine - Brutal but not as good as it could have been. (X-Men Origins: Wolverine (DVD))

Member Name: agewills

Product:	X-Men Origins: Wolverine (DVD)
Date:	05/11/09 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a great character to base a film on, great acting, reasonable script

Disadvantages: Poor effects on some parts

**this is a review of the blu ray**

I'll be honest from the start. I've always liked X men and Wolverine was my favourite character. I thought Hugh Jackman was an excellent choice to fill the role and so when I heard they were doing this film, I got a little over excited. Alas, it was ruined. It could have been so much better. Now, that's not to say it wasn't a good film, but in true Hollywood style, they made it for the masses, to sell as much as possible, rather than for the hardcore. It would have been much better as an 18 rated film. As would Terminator Salvation. Two good potential films, ruined (or at least, dropped short of greatness).

That out of the way, ill give you a review of the film. This X men outing does pretty much what it says on the tin. It tells you about the origins of Wolverine. Now, im not an avid comic book fan, but even I can see the inconsistencies and confusing parts to this story. It doesn't make sense with the history of x men itself. But its not too bad, if you ignore those parts and just enjoy the story, its quite good. The opening scenes are pretty fantastic as you watch Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) tearing it up through the centuries, fighting in both world wars and all sorts of other battles. I think they could have made more of this. It would have been amazing to see Wolverine kicking nazi butt back in the 1940's, but that's not the idea of the story, merely to make the point that both men are near immortal and bad-ass killing machines. This point is made well...

The film continues on to show how wolverine ended up with the adimantium endo-skeleton and eventually how he lost his memory. All the storylines that we know about are tied up neatly.

Along the way there is plenty of action to keep us entertained. Though the plot is oddly implausible. Given the gift of metal, Wolverine is then marked for death for no apparent reason, this is a bit perplexing. Why did they do it in the first place? That's a gaping sore in the films plot, but if you ignore it, the rest of the film is pretty enjoyable. The film is a little rougher than the usual X men outings. The violence is that little bit more gruesome, but not so much that younger people couldn't watch it. As I said, it should have been an 18, that would have been brilliant, but it wasn't.

As with the other movies, you can expect to see plenty of Mutuant in this film. It was pleasing to see both Remy LeBeau (Gambit) and Scott Summers (Cyclops) featured in the film, if only a taste. Perhaps a sign of more to come? Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) also makes an appearance, if only brief. But there's plenty to keep X men fans interested, even ones who aren't a fan of Wolverine.

The effects, as you might expect were pretty spectacular, as a smoke stack gets nicely destroyed later in the film. Collapsing in a heap of dust and rubble. Having said that, one thing that was painfully obviously fake were Wolverines claws. The shiny metal spikes were clearly computer generated. This was obvious on the big screen and even worse on Blu Ray. It begs the question as to why? Surely that's the most important part? So why was it left to be so blatantly fake? A real disappointment there, especially for a big budget film in the modern era. Even Terminator was more convincing back in the 1990's.

One of the nice features of the blu ray box was a copy of the film in 3 formats. Blu Ray, DVD and a digital copy. So all bases covered for £18.99 (or there abouts) which when you consider the DVD isn't much cheaper seems crazy. Why bother buying the standard DVD when you can have the DVD, Blu ray and digital copy for a couple of pounds more. Sure you might not have a blu ray player, but you might in the future! I think they deserve brownie points for that one.

As you'd expect from a blu ray, the picture was crisp and clean, the sound quality was terrific. The only thing that let it down was the claws, but even in standard definition they were poor!

At the end of the day, it's the best X men outing, in my opinion. Sure it wasn't as good as it could have been, but the fact that I saw it at the cinema AND got it on Blu Ray is a testament to the film itself.

Summary: Worth a watch for any x men fan