Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, starring Hug Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds.

The movie begins with a young boy James Howlett (Wolverine) discovering he has mutant abilities. It quickly tells how he and his half-brother Victor Creed live through the American Civil War, World War I and II, and Vietnam. In Vietnam their mutant abilities are discovered, they survive a firing squad and are recruited by Major William Stryker to join Team X a group of mutants including David North (Agent Zero), Chris Bradley (Bolt), Wade Wilson (Deadpool), Fred Dukes(Blob), and John Wraith. James leaves the group when he begins to question their actions.

A few years later James ? now using the name Logan - is a lumberjack living happily in Canada with his girlfriend Kayla, when Colonel Stryker appears with a sharply dressed agent zero, to warn him that someone is killing Team X members. Soon after Kayla is killed by Victor, and Logan is beaten by his half-brother while trying to exact revenge. Logan agrees to undergo a process to have his skeleton fused with adamantium. At this point Logan takes on the name Wolverine. As the painful process of fusing the adamantium to his skeleton is finishing, Colonel Stryker orders to have Wolverines memory erased, Wolverine hears this and escapes.

With the help of Wraith and Dukes, Wolverine locates Remy LeBeau (Gambit) who knows the location of the facility Colonel Stryker is using to perform experiments on mutants. Wolverine convinces Gambit to help him, and take him to the facility, which is at Three Mile Island.

The cinematography is good, the special effects are good and the direction is good. I can?t say that any one of those aspects of the movie jump out. What make this movie most entertaining is Hugh Jackman?s acting he, as a star should, carries this movie and makes his character believable, human and give him life. The other point of the movie that worked for me was the chemistry between Wolverine and Sabertooth, Hugh and Live Schreiber pulled off the love hate relationship brothers often have. This was by far much more powerful and believable than the relationship between Wolverine and Kayla (Silver Fox).

The Soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams is exceptional. This sets the mood for the entire movie and is most powerful during the opening sequence.

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone. It gives a basis in the origin of Wolverine and the Marvel Universe. With so many Marvel comic characters coming to the big screen, and the potential for characters to jump from one file to another, will we ever see Wolverine show up in an Iron Man movie, maybe or maybe not? But the potential exists and this movie, as well as being stand alone action adventure movie, offers grounding in what could be coming to a theater near you.

Is the "idea" of Captain America still a superhero?

In the early 1940's some people in America new the dangers of Hitler and Nazi Germany, but for the most part the nation wanted to let what happened in Europe stay in Europe. Some people chose to show the world their fear of Nazi Germany, by what ever means they could. To this end we see the conscious creation of a political comic book character Captain America. He appeared a year before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and was a huge success. It should also be noted that some people were strongly opposed to what Captain America stood for, and the creator’s received a lot of threatening letters and hate mail.

Captain America fought everything from Nazis to space aliens, but throughout his career he wrestled with, and in some cases was a sounding board for, events happening within and attitudes prevalent throughout the United States. As the series progressed from the early 1940's to the 2000's his overt opposition to the real world Nazis became covert opposition to threats such as terrorists, anti-nationalism, anti-registration, and many other ideals opposed to - who? The United States or to, what Captain America once stood for.

I have heard many times that Captain America is out dated. I don’t believe this is true, because if it is, you may as well say that freedom is out dated. The red, white and blue shield carrying superhero is the embodiment of what makes this country great. He fights against evil, he questions what is right and what is wrong, and he is not deterred. Killing off Captain America is more of a metaphor for pushing aside the values and beliefs of the United States. The scary part of understanding what people are saying when they say Captain America is out dated, is that they are saying the values and ideals of America are out dated.

Here I believe that the detractors of Captain America are wrong. In the future the comic book character will be brought back, and it will coincide with a shift in the attitudes of America. I am looking forward to that day, but until then it looks as if the superhero of choice will be one that reflects the shift in the political climate and the attitudes of America, perhaps someone such as Flag-Smasher is a more appropriate supervilian for the current climate sweeping across America.