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Issue date: 5/12/09 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: imdb.com Logan (left) and Victor face off. [Click to enlarge]

So after three X-Men films, 20th Century Fox finally decided that they will do an origin story for the most beloved character out of all the X-Men, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). In "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the audience is supposed to learn why and how Logan becomes the mutant he is today. If you are a die-hard comic fan boy, you will be feeling one of two ways. Either it's "Wow, tell me something I didn't know," or "Did they really just tweak his back-story?"

Logan discovered his powers when he was a little kid in 1845. When he is directly responsible for a couple of deaths, one of them being his father, he and his half-brother Victor (Liev Schreiber) decide to run away and never look back.

We are then told, through a montage of war clips, that the brothers fought in the Civil War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War for the U.S. One has to question how this can happen when they are Canadian.

Both then get recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join an elite team of mutants. After a couple of trial runs with the group, Logan doesn't like the direction this team is heading and decides to leave.

Six years have passed and Logan is now a logger, living in the woods with his lover Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Somehow Victor tracks them down and kills Kayla in the process. Logan is out for revenge, but Stryker insists on helping him out so he can track down Victor. So Stryker puts adamantium into Logan's body and the results are perfect.

For an action film, there really isn't a lot of buzz or excitement. When action is taking place, especially with special effects, we are suppose to be jaw-dropped and gazing with amazement that technology can do such a thing. Instead, it's more of a sigh then a cheer.

What people will notice are more mutants introduced into the film, with a big list that includes Gambit, Deadpool, Agent Zero and an early Cyclops. That's an orgy of mutants, but they do nothing with them. We see a couple of cool tricks, but that is it. It doesn't make sense to add characters into a film if you're not going to divulge a little bit of who they are or what they are capable of.

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