Adamantium rage & craze

There is no question that over the past decade, the X-Men movies have created an extremely successful movie franchise. Some installments (X2: X-Men United) can be considered among the best comic book movies, while others (X-Men: The Last Stand) would be better if they were forgotten. Still, with the success of all of the movies, and with over 40 years of source material from dozens of different titles, not to mention over a hundred characters to draw from, it is no surprise that Fox wants to expand the franchise. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was released this past weekend, is the first of what Fox hopes to be many movies that spin off from the franchise.

The story starts about a hundred and 50 years ago when Logan, then called James, first discovered that he was a mutant and could shoot bone claws out of his fists. Scared, James is calmed down by his half brother, Victor who says that they are the same and must always stick together. Then, as the opening credits roll, we see a montage of James and Victor (now being played by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber respectively) fighting in all of the major wars in American history from the Civil War, to World Wars I and II to the Vietnam War where Victor goes out of control, attacking a senior officer.

While Victor and James are in prison for their war crimes, they're approached by William Stryker (Danny Huston), who is in the process of putting together a team of mutants to perform tasks that normal solders aren't capable of. With the group, James and Victor perform mercenary tasks until James becomes aware of how immoral the things that they are doing have become. When Stryker orders the group to kill everyone in a village, James leaves the group as well as his brother.

James then changes his name to Logan and stays out of site for six years getting a job as a logger and even getting a girlfriend (Lynn Collins). His peaceful world comes crashing down when Stryker tracks him down to say that Victor has gone rogue and is killing old members of the team. Logan ignores this, believing it to not be his problem but this comes back to haunt him when he discovers a few days later that Victor has killed his girlfriend.

Heartbroken and full of rage, Logan vows vengeance, and Striker promises to help. He explains that because of Logan's regenerative powers, he would be able to withstand an experimental procedure that would coat his bones in an indestructible metal alloy called adamantium. Logan agrees to the procedure and is brought to a facility where he is dubbed Weapon X. Once he has gone through the procedure, Striker betrays Logan by ordering the scientist to wipe his memory but Logan is able to rip through the seemingly indestructible restraints and with his new adamantium claws, escape from the base. Vowing vengeance on Victor and Stryker's organization, Logan begins his quest of hunting down his old teammates for information about the project that he had unknowingly taken part of.

At this point Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine seems completely natural. Jackman is the first person to play the same comic book character in four different films since Christopher Reeve played Superman. Jackman has made the character his own and even though he has become a truly famous actor since the first movie, it's still easy to see the character instead of the actor. The evolution of the character is played out nicely as well as we see Wolverine become the character we know from the X-Men movies. The process feels natural and unforced with each step being believable and making since to the audience.

Fans of the comics will also be pleased to discover several Easter Eggs of characters throughout the movie. The long awaited Gambit finally makes an appearance and Taylor Kitsh does the character justice evoking the charm that Gambit had in the comics. Other characters that were slipped into the story include Emma Frost, and Quicksilver, though the truly memorable character is Wade Wilson, played by Ryan Reynolds. Though he boasts considerably less screen time, the future Deadpool proves to be just as memorable of a characters Wolverine himself. With his action filled fighting sequences combined with his non-stop sarcastic commentary that fills up almost every moment that he is on the screen, Reynolds's Deadpool character is one that begs for a spin-off movie of its own.