'Wolverine' Gets Choppy Storyline

X-Men Origins: Wolverine takes place before the X-Men films (and destroying any sense of a realistic timeline in doing so), tells the story of a young James Howlett (Hugh Jackman) in the 1800s running for his life with his older half brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) after slaying his father. The opening sequence, which was actually pretty cool, shows the two growing up and fighting in every major war possible, from the Civil War to the Vietnam conflict. Only when the two are stuck in a prison cell does William Stryker (Danny Huston) appear and offer them jobs working for the government with other mutant kind.

We're then introduced to a ragtag group of mutant misfits. Bolt (Dominic Monaghan) who can control electrical currents, Wraith (Will.I.Am) who teleports, Frederick J Dukes (Kevin Durand) who is the strongman and later becomes The Blob, Agent Zero (Daniel Heney) who shoots guns and does flips, and Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) a smart a** sword wielding assassin. Stryker is on the hunt for adamantium, but James, who now wants to be called Logan, doesn't like the methods of killing innocents and leaves the team. He begins his peaceful life of being a lumberjack with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).

Stryker offers Logan the tools to defeat Victor and Logan accepts, infusing his skeletal system with the indestructible adamantium. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't ever remember Logan volunteering in the comics for this procedure. From what I remember, it was done without his consent. This sets off a series of more fights, claw pops and Logan screaming into the sky. Logan teams up with Wraith and later Gambit (Taylor Kitsch, who has the worst f**king Cajun accent in history) to find and defeat Victor. Another crappy actor was Will.I.Am, or Will i Am from The Black Eyed Peas, or however you spell his stupid name, trying to get into acting. The guy reads his lines like he's on Vicodin and his performance, as expected, is horrible. Please just stick to music, sir.

While the movie has a ton of action sequences, including multiple fights with Victor, Gambit, helicopters, trucks and anything else the production crew found lying around the set, the overall story is weak. While the film moves along at a really good pace, and there is wall-to-wall action from beginning to end, I still got bored.

Despite the online leak, I'm pretty confident fans will still pay to see this movie. Wolverine is one of Marvel’s most popular characters, and Jackman does a great job as always. The problem is the story and the addition of 500 different mutants that crowds the movie and turns it into a Mortal Kombat tournament ladder of superhero fights. The Weapon XI scenes were pretty stupid and just unnecessary. And the reason for Logan becoming Wolverine was more a matter of desperation on his part instead of deceit by Stryker and the Weapon X program.

Will a sequel to Wolverine get made? Doubtful. I'm not sure if Hugh Jackman would sign on for another after the treatment his character gets in his first solo outing. Something I blame on the writers more than the director. But if a sequel is made, I hope they go with the Japan storyline because it would make for a great movie. Actually, I don't know why they didn't just go with that storyline to begin with. X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn't that good of a solo introduction for everyone's favorite mutant, but it wasn't that bad either. I'll leave it up to you.—George “El Guapo” Roush

Latino Review Rating: C+