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X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Set twenty years before the first X-Men film and featuring a number of cameos from the original trilogy and a few Marvel Film debuts, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has plenty of reasons to get comic book nerds and action flick junkies alike sweating into their popcorn. Yes, furry chops himself is back and even more at the centre of attention than before, but with The Last Stand being a clusterfuck of badly executed ideas, Wolvie needs to buck his ideas up to stop the franchise from rolling ominously into self-parody. Luckily, Gambit's in this one, so it can't possibly go wrong right?.....Right?
Right! Thanks to a simpler and less congested plotline (Wolvie grows up, Wolvie joins a mutant military team, Wolvie leaves, Wolvie fights said military team) and a mostly decent supporting cast, Wolverine stands as a far superior film to its predecessor and a proud addition to the X-Men legacy. While Liev Schreiber's casting as Sabretooth leaves a few plot continuities open given Tyler Mane's holy different take on the character in the first film, his chemistry with Hugh Jackman is fantastic and wholly believable, and the fight scenes between the two are well-orchestrated given the limits of having two claw-bearing maniacs kick seven shades of shit out of each other in a 12a film.
Ryan Reynolds makes a brilliant Deadpool, even if the characters' eventual fate is a bit confusing and somewhat unnecessary, and a potentially pointless appearance from a young Cyclops is surprisingly well-worked. There are ridiculous moments such as the ludicrous helicopter scene that most will have already seen in the trailers, and in all honesty some of the CGI could have used some final tweaks, but this is generally a solid action film that restores a lot of faith in the future of the series, and bodes well for the upcoming Magneto film and any potential sequels.
Oh, and Gambit is awesome in it. Obviously.
REview from: Merlin Alderslade