X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).

Directed by Gavin Hood, this film tells the story of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a mutant bit claws coming out of his knuckles. All in HD once again, I really can’t get enough of it. I think I regret not getting my laptop with a blu-ray disk drive but I guess that would mean I actually have to PAY for films.. x) Anyways, the film begins in the past, where a young James Howlet sees his father murdered by a groundskeeper at their house, causing his mutation to surface. As he avenges his father’s death through his rage and uncontrollable anger, the groudskeeper Thomas Logan reveals that he is actually young Jimmy’s father. Jimmy flees with his brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) and end up fighting in the American Civil War, WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War. With the power of regeneration, they are able to live immortally. Victor, the more violent of the two kills a superior officer, and with Jimmy defending him, both are sentenced to execution (though with their powers of regeneration this isn’t really a problem). The brothers are then approached by Major William Stryker (Danny Huston), offering them to work as part of Team X, a group of mutants, played by Ryan Reynolds, Will.i.am and Dominic Monaghan amongst others ^_^ Something about seeing familiar faces always makes me feel *yay*. Anyway, after a while, Jimmy leaves Team X as he starts to question their actions. Skip forward to 6 years later, Jimmy is a lumberjack (lol) now under the name Logan, living with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox (a mutant’s name if I ever saw one). Stryker finds Logan and warns him that someone is killing members of Team X. It is revealed that Victor is the one doing the damage, and after Kayla is murdered and losing a fight to Victor, Logan agrees to let Stryker coat his skeleton with adamantium, an almost indestructible metal compound. Scenes here will be very familiar as they appear in much of the other X-men films. As the experiment is proven successful, Stryker orders for Wolverine’s memory to be erased, but he escapes (stark nekkkkiddd) before they can do anything. So now with super sharp claws, Wolverine is on the hunt for Stryker, Victor, and “The Island”, where they seem to be collecting mutants from all over for some kind of Weapon XI. After questioning previous Team X members, he discovers that Remy LeBeau aka Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) escaped from the facility and thus knows the location of Three Mile Island. After a fight with Victor and Gambit, Logan is taken to the island by Gambit, where he discovers that Kayla is actually alive. Not only that, she is also a mutant who can persuade any human she touches. Victor asks Stryker to also be coated in admantium, but Stryker refuses, and says the procedure would kill him. After a final fight between the two brothers, Logan cannot bring himself to kill his brother, and instead helps Kayla free the other captured mutants. Stryker lets  loose his Weapon XI – which is in fact his son Wade (Ryan Reynolds) with many other mutant powers which have been put in his system. More fighting, the brothers unite in the fighting to decapitate Weapon XI, whose laser eyes (from a young Cyclops) cut through the facility’s cooling towers in quite a spectacular way. As the place falls apart, Stryker shoots Logan with adamantium bullets in the head, rendering his memory lost, though he regenerates perfectly well otherwise. Gambit is by his side when he awakes, but doesn’t know who he is or where he is etc. Cue X-men 1.

Wolverine’s story is something that has recurred in all the X-men films, psyching this one up hugely. It’s got quite a different feel to the other films (maybe because of a different director) as there is less mutant powers flying everywhere, and more plot and substance I think, instead of the usual Mutant-war-everyone-overuse-their-powers kinda thing. Despite that I did miss seeing some of the old characters, though Xavier did make an appearance at the end rescuing all the escaped prisoners and taking them to his school :) The vignetting in this film made some parts really grimy and dark, which reflects the character of Wolverine. As a big fan of Marvel and general comic book films, I can’t not like this. Something about superpowers in normal people just make me happy.