Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
xx
Adjustment Bureau, The
53
Alice in Wonderland
47
A-Team, The
84
Avatar![]()
63
Babies
34
Back-up Plan, The
53
Book of Eli, The
22
Bounty Hunter, The
30
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
xx
Chain Letter
39
Clash of the Titans
31
Cop Out
55
Crazies, The
56
Date Night
51
Death at a Funeral
72
Despicable Me
56
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
56
Dinner for Schmucks
51
Eat Pray Love
45
Expendables, The
23
Furry Vengeance
65
Get Him to the Greek
61
Green Zone
30
Grown Ups
63
Hot Tub Time Machine
74
How to Train Your Dragon
79
IMAX: Hubble 3D
74
Inception
57
Iron Man 2
33
Jonah Hex
52
Just Wright
61
Karate Kid, The
66
Kick-Ass
21
Killers
46
Knight and Day
20
Last Airbender, The
xx
Last Exorcism, The
33
Last Song, the
31
Letters to God
50
Letters to Juliet
43
MacGruber
30
Marmaduke
35
Nightmare on Elm Street, A
75
Oceans
64
Other Guys, The
38
Our Family Wedding
47
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
xx
Piranha 3-D
51
Predators
50
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
56
Ramona and Beezus
40
Remember Me
53
Robin Hood
65
Salt
67
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
27
Sex and the City 2
46
She's Out of My League
58
Shrek Forever After
63
Shutter Island
46
Sorcerer's Apprentice, The
66
Splice
45
Step Up 3D
xx
Takers
92
Toy Story 3![]()
58
Twilight Saga: Eclipse, The
44
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
43
Why Did I Get Married Too
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
52
[Rec] 2
xx
12th & Delaware
xx
180° South
90
45365![]()
55
8: The Mormon Proposition
xx
Accidents Happen
62
After the Cup: The Sons of Sakhnin United
36
After.Life
73
Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, The
55
Agora
82
Ajami![]()
77
Alamar
78
Anton Chekhov's The Duel
63
Around a Small Mountain
57
Audrey the Trainwreck
xx
Badmaash Company
xx
Barking Water
75
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
62
Behind the Burly Q
63
Best Worst Movie
31
Black Waters of Echo's Pond, The
35
Boogie Woogie
64
Breath Made Visible: Anna Halprin
xx
Brotherhood
24
Burzynski
51
Butcher's Son, The
xx
Ca$h
67
Cairo Time
59
Cartel, The
68
Casino Jack and the United States of Money
37
Charlie St. Cloud
xx
Cheech & Chong's Hey Watch This
48
Chloe
66
City Island
52
City of Your Final Destination, The
56
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
58
Concert, The
xx
Contenders, The
xx
Convention
71
Countdown to Zero
83
Crazy Heart![]()
51
Creation
xx
Cremaster Cycle, The
73
Cropsey
73
Cyrus
74
Daddy Longlegs
64
Disappearance of Alice Creed, The
73
Dogtooth
50
Don McKay
66
Double Take
47
Dry Land, The
67
Eclipse, The
85
Exit Through the Gift Shop![]()
56
Extra Man, The
75
Farewell
76
Father of My Children, The
30
Finding Bliss
38
Flipped
52
Formosa Betrayed
60
Fresh
xx
Fruit Fly
53
Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema
43
George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead
76
Get Low
68
Ghost Bird
77
Ghost Writer, The
68
Girl on the Train, The
66
Girl Who Played with Fire, The
xx
Gone with the Pope
40
Good Heart, The
69
Good, The Bad, The Weird, The
49
Great Directors
45
Greatest, The
76
Greenberg
59
Handsome Harry
24
Happiness Runs
73
Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
55
Harry Brown
80
Have You Heard From Johannesburg?: Apartheid and the Club of the West
57
Here and There
xx
Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger
51
Holy Rollers
54
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
32
Human Centipede (First Sequence), The
79
I Am Love
91
I Was Born, But...![]()
33
In My Sleep
60
Infidel, The
67
It Came From Kuchar
74
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
79
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
57
John Rabe
55
Joneses, The
55
Juche Idea, The
65
Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
86
Kids Are All Right, The![]()
53
Killer Inside Me, The
53
Killing Kasztner
44
Kimjongilia
xx
Kings of the Evening
68
Kisses
62
Kites: The Remix
47
La Mission
xx
Last Letters from Monte Rosa
xx
Law, The
63
Lbs.
xx
Le amiche
58
Leaves of Grass
87
Lebanon![]()
72
Let It Rain
70
Life During Wartime
41
Lightkeepers, The
76
Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
37
Living Wake, The
66
Looking for Eric
72
Lottery, The
37
Love Ranch
86
Mademoiselle Chambon![]()
xx
Malice in Wonderland
46
Mercy
78
Messenger, The
47
Metropia
62
Micmacs
75
Mid-August Lunch
60
Middle Men
54
Misfortunates, The
64
Mother and Child
75
Mugabe and the White African
35
Multiple Sarcasms
65
Mundo Alas
xx
My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
50
My Name is Khan
41
Nature of Existence, The
71
Neshoba: The Price of Freedom
xx
Nightfall
71
No One Knows About Persian Cats
59
Nobody’s Perfect
72
Oath, The
xx
Ocean of Pearls
65
Ondine
59
Only When I Dance
58
OSS 117: Lost in Rio
xx
Oxford Murders, The
37
Paper Man
63
Parking Lot Movie, The
68
Patrik Age 1.5
40
People I've Slept With, The
42
Perfect Game, The
47
Perrier's Bounty
48
Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
78
Please Give
31
Pornography: A Thriller
41
Princess Kaiulani
90
Prophet, A![]()
xx
Raajneeti
67
Raavan
78
Racing Dreams
xx
Ramchand Pakistani
xx
Red Birds
63
Reel Injun
85
Restrepo![]()
xx
Road, Movie
45
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
xx
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
43
Salt of This Sea
81
Secret in Their Eyes, The![]()
81
Secret of Kells, The![]()
73
See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary
57
Severe Clear
57
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
52
Shine of Rainbows, A
48
Sicilian Girl, The
77
Single Man, A
68
Smash His Camera
69
Solitary Man
45
South of the Border
56
Spoken Word
47
Spring Fever
75
Square, The
22
Standing Ovation
75
Stonewall Uprising
53
Tales from the Script
74
Terribly Happy
78
Teza
75
That Evening Sun
xx
They Came to Play
49
Thorn in the Heart, The
xx
Thru the Moebius Strip
60
TiMER
64
Tirador
15
To Age or Not to Age
52
Touching Home
33
Trash Humpers
59
Trotsky, The
xx
Trust Us, This Is All Made Up
24
Twelve
56
Two in the Wave
62
Valhalla Rising
85
Vincere![]()
xx
Visionaries
54
Wah Do Dem
70
Warlords, The
56
What's the Matter with Kansas?
55
When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors
68
Whiz Kids
52
Who Do You Love
35
Who Killed Nancy
64
Wild Grass
xx
Wild Hunt, The
56
Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest, The
69
Winnebago Man
90
Winter's Bone![]()
68
Women Without Men
xx
World on a Wire
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 236 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Fantasy | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
David Beniof
Skip Woods
Directed by: Gavin Hood
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 1, 2009
DVD: September 15, 2009
Running Time: 107 minutes, Color
Origin: Australia | USA | Canada
Summary
RATING: PG-13 violence, intense sequences of action and some partial nudity
Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Will.i.am, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, and Daniel Henney
Hugh Jackman reprises the role that made him a superstar - as the fierce fighting machine who possesses amazing healing powers, retractable claws and a primal fury. Leading up to the events of X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells the story of Wolverine's epically violent and romantic past, his complex relationship with Victor Creed, and the ominous Weapon X program. Along the way, Wolverine encounters many mutants, both familiar and new, including surprise appearances by several legends of the X-Men universe whose appearances in the film series have long been anticipated. (20th Century Fox)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: X-Men X-Men: The Last Stand
GAMES: X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Uncaged Edition (360)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database X-Men Origins: Wolverine
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Fortunately, Jackman is well-matched with Schreiber, who can sneer with the best of them and wears fangs well. The two have three spectacular battles together before squaring off against a formidable enemy atop a nuclear reactor.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Although it's a quintessential popcorn movie, Wolverine is not mindless. Hood and Jackman bring depth to a comic-book tale of anti-heroes with anger issues.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Hugh Jackman demonstrates that you can segue effortlessly from a tuxedoed song-and-dance man at the Oscars to a feral gent with adamantium claws and "berserker rage."
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Jackman has a wily, crowd-pleasing knack for playing Wolverine as if he were a more emotive and even more snarly Clint Eastwood.
Read Full Review >Premiere Jordan Burchette
Things explode, jerks get stabbed and all the boxes on the action-movie honey-do list get checks.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
When it comes to superhero tales, the two least appealing types are origin stories and prequels. Wolverine has the double disadvantage of being both.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Rick Bentley
Ends up being a relatively sharp way to start the summer movie season. The familiarity of the story just declaws it a bit.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Whether this journey to the past was necessary is definitely up for debate: Wolverine's history turns out to be only moderately interesting and not terribly surprising.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
It's a solid, efficient comic book movie that is content to provide comic book satisfactions of the action and violence variety. If it doesn't rise to the heights of Christopher Nolan's "Batman" films, it doesn't stray into "Daredevil" territory either.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The effect-laden showdowns feel more dutiful than daring, and the rare moments of fun are parceled out frugally, like precious nuggets of adamantium.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
Noisy and impersonal, X-Men Origins: Wolverine bears all the marks of a work for hire, conceived and executed with a big budget but little imagination.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is Hugh Jackman's misfortune that when they were handing out superheroes, he got Wolverine, who is for my money low on the charisma list. He never says anything witty, insightful or very intelligent; his utterances are limited to the vocalization of primitive forces: anger, hurt, vengeance, love, hate, determination.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
A chaotic headbanger, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is saved from pure flat-footed blockbuster franchise adequacy by six things, three of them on Hugh Jackman's left hand, three on his right.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Wolverine feels enslaved to its many masters - Marvel Comics, Hollywood, and the young men who devour their products - never sidestepping the déjà vu it inspires.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
There's little of the seen-it-all, wise-guy acerbity that made his character in the X-Men trilogy stand apart from his fellow mutants. Here, he just glowers.
Read Full Review >Washington Post John Anderson
Wolverine is full of angst, and yet it has virtually all the humanity wrung out of it in an effort to create a live-action cartoon.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
It is the latest evidence that the superhero movie is suffering from serious imaginative fatigue.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's all a jumble and, worse, a damned impersonal one.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Unfortunately, the talented cast is saddled with some mercilessly flat dialogue, a definite point of vulnerability for any mutant movie.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished and just plain sloppy.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Jason Buchanan
From a non-fanboy perspective, it has some exciting action and colorful characters; unfortunately, the special effects vary from impressive to embarrassing.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
The most terrifying thing about the movie, really, is that plural: Originsssss. So many mutants, so much time. Thank God we can leave that for another summer.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Jackman's committed performance keeps the movie on track, though Huston and Schreiber are strictly on autopilot.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
In the noisy X-Men Origins: Wolverine, two warring mutant brothers, Liev Schreiber, a morose sadist with fangs, and Hugh Jackman, unhappy but ripped, fly at each other again and again, grappling, punching, slashing. Alas, there’s nothing quite memorable here: much of the combat is just a whirl of movement photographed up close.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Even the final fight, between the united brothers and the end result of Stryker's amusing attempts to combine teleportation, accelerated healing, adamantium, and optic blasts into a super mutant, is as ridiculous and half-assed as the rest of the movie.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Wolverine purports to tell us more and yet gives us less: It's so cluttered and action-packed that the action ceases to mean anything -- virtually nothing the characters do or say results in consequences that stick.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Everything gets scarified on the altar of speed. You hardly get any chance to take the measure of any mutant, least of all Wolverine.
Read Full Review >Empire Nick De Semlyen
Can everyone stop making moody origin stories now, please? While not a disaster, this isn't the claws-out, rampaging adventure we hoped for. No-one cares where Wolverine found his jacket -- a spin-off with him kicking ass in Japan would have been way more fun.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Wolverine is a noisy mess, an origin/prequel that's nicely full of Jackman's ace glare as Wolverine and seriously killer snarl – The Boy From Aaarrrgh! – but utterly devoid of any of the borderline subversive smarts that made Bryan Singer's "X-Men" outings so contemporarily resonant.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Supposedly a comic book movie, and yet it violates one of the tenets of comic books: It doesn't delineate and particularize Wolverine's special powers.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story’s mounting ludicrousness--two words: adamantium bullets--or a conclusion that’s only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown. Maybe.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
My brain glazed over and my heart turned adamantine while the stupidities of this action thriller played themselves out.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 236 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
B J gave it a1:
The story line is so incorrect. Wolverine and sabertooth were not brothers, Deadpool does not have laser eyes or swords that come out of his arms. Cyclops was not part of Weapon X. This is a god awful movies do not watch it.
Steve Bob gave it a7:
A good start to the film! it really does a good job going into Logan's past. The movie kinda loses its flare at the end but still leaves a good flavor!
bill gave it a3:
There are a lot of good action scenes in this movie like the last fight between Wolverine, Sabertooth and Deadpool. However, there are alot of things that don't add up, like we know wolverine loses his memory and because of that he does not know that sabertooth is his brother, but sabertooth never loses his memory(as far as we know), so my question is how come in the frist x-men film when sabertooth and wolverine are fighting atop the statue of liberty Sabertooth didn't say,"Hey little brother haven't seen you since we kick that bald guys butt, how about we stop this fighting get a beer and ketchup". There are other things like this but I don't time to wright them all down.
t j gave it an8:
I don't understand the low scores. I thought the movie was perhaps the best of them all. It had a real story to it. There were some goofy parts, but surprisingly few considering that it is an X-men movie. The action was good, the story was good, the acting was good. The most noticeable bad thing about the movie was that it did not do a very good job of being set in the past, or at least i felt it did not.
Eric E gave it a6:
Not bad, not good. Just ok. I prefer the original X-Men movies to this. This gives you some background on Wolverine but just felt a bit forced. Most of the other mutants in the movie were more of cameo's than anything. Don't even really know why they put them in the previews as if they were part of the whole movie.
Chris A. gave it a4:
As far as action goes it was decent. The main flaw with this movie was the terrible (and I mean terrible) CG it had. The claws in one scene look like kids toys and move about on his hands. Its really really bad CG. The plot wasn't bad but did change alot and Deadpool at the end was handled really badly.
Ryan S gave it a5:
Somewhat fun, totally forgettable. Has enough colorful action sequences to keep you from getting bored, although there was a disappointing lack of gore.
