Barney gives "Wolverine" three extruded adamantium claws out of six.
Recently the better 7/8ths and I got around to seeing "Wolverine." She to see the eye candy that is Hugh Jackman, me to see how well the movie stacked up to the Barry Windsor Smith work "Weapon X" that detailed how Logan became Weapon X before he was known as Wolverine.
I had read various reviews and thus wasn't disappointed when the movie took a left turn out of Albuquerque. We know that Logan is old, his healing factor keeping death at bay, and he doesn't look too bad for a guy over 160 years old - definitely robbing the cradle with Silverfox, that's for sure!
The bulk of the movie is implied to take place somewhere in the 1970s - 1980s. OK, it is a genesis movie, after all, and we know that Logan and his brother Sabertooth fought various wars throughout history - apparently for Sabertooth it is a way for him to satisfy his bloodlust - while Logan moves beyond the need for mindless killing. We see Logan, Sabertooth, and the motley crew of mutants collected by one Col. Stryker hunt down a mysterious meteorite, apparently the sole source of adamantium in the world - Logan is tired of the killing and walks away.
So Logan goes off and becomes a lumberjack where he sleeps all night and works all day. After a period of years, Stryker shows up and tells Logan that his brother has gone off the reservation and is killing members of the team and wants Logan to return to help hunt his brother down. Logan refuses and later his brother shows up to kill Silverfox. He and Logan then trash a bar with Sabertooth getting the upper hand, or claw in this case. Cut to the hospital where Styker offers Logan a deal to give him the tools to kill Sabertooth. Logan agrees.
On to the adamantium baths! Logan is injected with liquid adamantium that will bond to his bones, Styker figuring that Logan's healing ability will keep him alive - in a lot of pain, yeah, but alive - until the adamantium is fused with Logan's bones. The process works, naturally, and Logan is reborn as Weapon X / Wolverine. He overhears Styker order his death while still underwater in the adamantium bath (this is the first indication that Logan has mutant abilities other than for his healing - in the comic Logan has heightened senses of hearing and smell, along with strength, speed, and agility - you try lugging around several hundred pounds of metal skeleton and see how strong you have to be) and Logan escapes. Stryker is given adamantium-tipped bullets, the only thing that will pierce Logan's skull and theoretically kill him.
Logan gets an old farm couple killed, takes their dead son's motorcycle and heads to Las Vegas where he meets up with two of his former comrades-in-arms, the person known as The Blob and a teleporter played by Black Eyed Peas singer Will.I.Am. It is here that Logan finds out that Sabertooth and Stryker had been working together all along to bring Logan back into the fold long enough for Stryker to get a sample of Logan's mutant DNA. Stryker is working on a project that involves mutants.
Cut to an adolescent Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, in high school. Sabertooth hunts Scott down in a hallway, knocking Scott's ruby glasses off and unleashing his laser* vision that cuts through most of the school - luckily this is after hours and no one is hurt.
Back to Logan. Blob tells Logan that there is only one person who has escaped "The Island" where Stryker is doing his experiments (this is not the location of the adamantium bath, but somewhere else); this person is the mutant known as Gambit, another mutant in the comic series that is almost as popular as Logan. Gambit, according to Blob, is in New Orleans.
Off to Nawlins! Logan meets up with Gambit and gets a chestful of energized cards (Gambit's ability to to imbue objects with explosive energy). Meanwhile, Will.I.Am tangles with Sabertooth in an alleyway and is killed because, as Sabertooth said, he was "too predictable." Sabertooth extracts some of Will.I.Am's mutant DNA and is off to The Island. Logan and Gambit have a meeting of the minds and Gambit flys Logan (who suffers from air sickness) to..
Three Mile Island! Yes, TMI is "The Island." It is here that Stryker is making Weapon XI, a super-soldier that is a mutant who is an amalgam of multiple mutant abilities - Logan's healing ability was needed in order to bond the multiple mutant abilities together. We find out that Silverfox isn't dead, but was playing another part in Stryker's plan. She too has mutant abilities of persuasion. The other mutants are freed and meet up with Professor X, a cameo by Patrick Stewart who is walking (this was before the accident that robbed Prof X the use of his legs); Silverfox is mortally wounded, and Sabertooth and Logan duke it out with Weapon XI (under the control of Stryker) on the top of a cooling tower that crumbles as Weapon XI's head goes spinning off, eyes shooting out the Cyclop's beam. Sabertooth escapes, Gambit blows up a huge chunk of tower that was going to land on Logan. Logan finds the wounded Silverfox and is taking her to get help when...
*KA-POW* Through the head with an adamantium bullet. Stryker puts a second slug into Logan's head. Now, we know that Logan has to survive, and he does, but he has lost his memory.
The good: pretty scenery.
The bad: meh plotting.
The ugly. Blob.
* In the comics there was the implication that the beams from Cyclop's eyes were powerful laser beams. In the X-Men movies and here in Wolverine, the beams acted like they had mass, leading me to believe that the beams are more like particle beams than lasers.
** In the original X-Men movie, Magneto had his Leauge of Evil Mutants that included Sabertooth (orange/tan bodysuit, ruff of fur around the neck & shoulders). I wonder if this movie, if re-released, will be retconned with Liev as Sabertooth?
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