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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

EMAILPRINT20th Century Fox

X-Men Origins: Wolverine reviews
43
5.8 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 231 votes
Read user comments
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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)

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...

75

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.

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75

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.

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75

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."

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63

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.

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63

Premiere Jordan Burchette

Things explode, jerks get stabbed and all the boxes on the action-movie honey-do list get checks.

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63

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.

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63

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.

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63

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.

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60

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.

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58

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.

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50

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.

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50

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.

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50

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.

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50

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.

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50

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.

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50

Time Richard Corliss

O.K., not great.

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50

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.

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50

The New York Times A.O. Scott

It is the latest evidence that the superhero movie is suffering from serious imaginative fatigue.

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50

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's all a jumble and, worse, a damned impersonal one.

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50

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.

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50

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished and just plain sloppy.

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50

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.

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50

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.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Jackman's committed performance keeps the movie on track, though Huston and Schreiber are strictly on autopilot.

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50

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.

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40

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.

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40

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.

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40

Slate Dana Stevens

Remarkably lame.

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40

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.

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40

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.

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30

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Altogether unfathomable, if not unbearable.

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30

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.

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25

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.

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25

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.

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20

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Slice-and-dice superhero fiasco.

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20

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

My brain glazed over and my heart turned adamantine while the stupidities of this action thriller played themselves out.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.8 (out of 10) based on 231 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.

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