How to Watch: “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”

Step 1: Ask the question: Could the Wolverine story be getting a little tired at this point, even though Hugh Jackman still looks good with mutton chops?

Step 2: Answer the question: Possibly. Despite some cool action sequences, X-Men Origins: Wolverine seems like a retread; there’s nothing new and different in this X-Men realm.

Step 3: Think about X2 and how tortured Wolverine is in it, dealing with the evil William Stryker (Brian Cox) and trying to figure out his past. Do we really need a whole movie to explain how James Logan, aka Wolverine, grew up as a mutant with his brother, Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) – fighting in every major war from the Civil War through the Vietnam War and then finally joining a team of mercenaries in the late ’60s? How Logan came to hate killing people, while Victor learned to crave it? How Logan eventually has to succumb to the younger Stryker (Danny Huston) and his experiments to turn Logan into the indestructible Wolverine with metal bone structure so he can exact revenge on his brother Sabretooth after he seemingly kills his girlfriend? No, on all accounts. The mysteries behind Wolverine’s back story could have been left at just that – a mystery, or at least just a flashback.

Step 4: Don’t blame Hugh Jackman. He is still terribly charismatic as Wolverine and has really made that character his own. Don’t blame Schreiber either, who embraces his animalistic tendencies. Instead, blame Huston, who overplays it and the fact we meet a bunch of other cool mutants but never really get to know any of them. Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, is particularly intriguing but gone in a flash.

Step 5: Try a different director next time. Don’t get me wrong – South African Gavin Hood is great at depicting hard life in his home country, as he did with the Oscar-winning Tsotsi. But he’s no Bryan Singer (who directed the first two X-Men) and doesn’t really have a handle on the X-Men nuances. Wolverine is way too paint by the numbers.

Step 6: If you want an X-Men Origin story, then do one on Magneto; the whole Holocaust scenario is bound to be more compelling (one is apparently in the works).

Level of difficulty watching Wolverine: Moderate to Hard; there’s just not enough substance to this X-Men story to make it worthwhile.