Let me first say that growing up in the '80s & '90s I read a lot of comics one of which was The X-Men from Marvel so I'd like to think I know a lot about the characters. I know that sometime at the end of the '90s and '00s Marvel's brains were scrambled and they decided to re-boot their comics (most of which from what I've heard was a disaster but some did stick).
I love comic book films of which BLADE, SPIDER-MAN, SPIDER-MAN 2, HELLBOY & HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY are among the best recent examples. If you notice none of the X-Men films are included on this list and that is for good reason as none of the films are all that good (although I do consider X2: X-MEN UNITED the best). The only reason why any of the films suceeded is because of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Ian McKellen as Magneto because the screenplays are pedestrian at best with no sense of what the X-Men truly were, which was a team of mutants who banded together in order to combat majot atrocities to their kind as well as humankind. Now the theme is present in all three films but the word "team" is lacking in all except the 2nd film (hince why I think it is the best). The first film is nothing more then a film about Wolverine and Rogue who just so happen to meet the X-Men (since no one in the team is given nearly as much screen time as Wolverine & Rogue nor as much of a story/plot). The 2nd film managed to have plenty of great subplots amongst the great action set pieces and actually tried to be a good and well rounded film and Wolverine didn't hog all the screen time (although Cyclops the leader of the X-Men is still under used). The 3rd film was a total mess as old characters from the first two films are killed or completely discarded to make room for all the new characters who were just on hand as popcorn eye candy. It was one big action film mess withy no redeemable qualities.
The same can be said of X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE which rewrites X-Men lore to suit whatever the filmmakers thought would be "cooler" in a story that's so uninspired that I almost fell asleep in the theatre. Fleshing out events already alluded to in X2 this new film tries to explain the origins of Wolverine which is the least interesting story to try and tell. With so much history to pull from with the Wolverine character the filmmakers decided to go with a story that pretty much told itself it the previous film. Let's not even mention the complete overhaul done on the Sabretooth character and the complete misuse of the Gambit character (another one of the X-Men's most popular characters who bares has a comeo in this film). The film comes off as nothing more than a marketing ploe to get butts in the seats with lots of things that go "boom" and "pow" and I for one never bought it.
The film is an uninspired mess of which I'm shocked that Jackman didn't have more input into (especially since they plan on making a trilogy of these films). I don't recommend this film to any one unless you ust love Jackman or just can't wait to see the film on video.
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