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X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Two-Disc Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] | ![X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Two-Disc Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yQoDVBNaL._SL500_.jpg) | Director: Gavin Hood
Actors: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $24.99
as of 9/10/2010 21:57 CDT details
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New (41) from $14.69
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  350 reviews
Sales Rank: 4326
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Cantonese (Subtitled), Mandarin Chinese (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), French (Original Language), Portuguese (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Blu-ray
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 5.4 x 0.5
MPN: 024543602804
UPC: 024543602804
EAN: 0024543602804
ASIN: B001GCUO16
Theatrical Release Date: September 15, 2009
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
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Product Description
Follows James Logan as he discovers his mutant powers and his half-brother Victor Creed.
Amazon.com
Wolverine, fan favorite of the X-Men universe in both comic books and film, gets his own movie vehicle with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a tale that reaches way, way back into the hairy mutant's story. Somewhere in the wilds of northwest Canada in the early 1800s, two boys grow up amid violence: half-brothers with very special powers. Eventually they will become the near-indestructible warriors (and victims of a super-secret government program) known as Wolverine and Sabretooth, played respectively by Hugh Jackman (returning to his role) and Liev Schreiber (new to the scene). It helps enormously to have Schreiber, an actor of brawny skills, as the showiest villain; the guy can put genuine menace into a vocal inflection or a shift of the eyes. Danny Huston is the sinister government operative whose experiments keep pullin' Wolverine back in, Lynn Collins is the woman who shares a peaceful Canadian co-existence with our hero when he tries to drop out of the program, and Ryan Reynolds adds needed humor, at least for a while. The fast-paced early reels give an entertaining kick-off to the Wolverine saga, only to slow down when a proper plot must be put together--but isn't that perpetually the problem with origin stories? And despite a cool setting, the grand finale is a little hemmed in by certain plot essentials that must be in place for the sequels, which may be why characters do nonsensical things. So, this one is fun while it lasts, if you're not looking for a masterpiece, or an explanation for Wolverine's facial grooming. --Robert Horton
Stills from X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Click for larger image)
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 X-men Origins Indeed; Overall Fun Sueprhero Flick September 8, 2010
A.P. Fuchs / Canister X
Little James was born in the 1800s, always sick. His family background . . . well, he didn't have much of one, at least, one that cared. Except for his friend, Victor. One night, during a drunken upset with his later-to-be-found-out father, James learned he could produce bone claws from his hands and defends himself, killing his father.
That night, James and Victor are on the run, and promise to always stick together. The years go by and the two find a great outlet for their rage: war. Victor (Liev Schreiber) also has a special ability and he is more animal than man, with claws coming out of his fingers. The two are very similar and age very slowly. War after war goes by, and the two eventually end up working with a secret team run by William Stryker (Danny Huston). While on one mission, James-now calling himself Logan (Hugh Jackman)-feels Victor has gone too far in his attack on an innocent and walks out on the group.
Years later, the group's been disbanded and Stryker comes to warn Logan that Victor is behind the recent string of deaths of its former members. The only way Logan will be strong enough to fight the always-stronger Victor is to undergo a special experiment of Stryker's own design: graft the indestructible adamantium to his bones. Logan agrees.
But there's something Stryker hasn't told him about what's been going on and when Logan finds out, he's furious and wages an all-out one-man war against Stryker, Victor and anyone else who stands in his way.
On the action: cool fight scenes and neat concepts. However, it seemed to me Logan was a little too acrobatic and was able to survive way more and take way more pain than even a mutant with a healing ability could.
On the story: works for me, in that we knew Logan had a history going in. He was the star of the X-Men movies after all, and X2 especially focused on Logan's origins as much as they were able without detracting from the main story. I did like seeing what really went on and, more specifically, how Logan lost his memory. I was under the impression that he lost it because of the adamantium experiment and not after it. Doesn't matter, but I did feel for the guy when the love of his life wasn't all she was cracked up to be.
On Deadpool, because, you know, it has to be covered: the whole story involving the secret ops group Logan was a part of made for fun action. Deadpool's origin, hey, why not. To be honest, I don't know if they followed the comics or not because I'm more a DC guy than a Marvel one and don't know too much about Deadpool other than he's the "merc with a mouth." His transformation from normal-looking Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) to disfigured Wade-good stuff.
Was this a perfect movie? No, unfortunately. It felt too cartoony as opposed to carrying with it the realistic tone the other X-movies had, namely the first two.
Will I see the sequel? Absolutely. I'm a saga guy so I want to see what happens next.
Check this film out if you're the superhero-movie-completist type like me.
A.P. Fuchs
Canister X
Turn Your Brain Off and Enjoy September 7, 2010
J. Romeo (knoxville, tn USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I didn't want to like X-Men Origins: Wolverine When it was announced the movie was in the works, along with X-Men Origins: Magneto, I cringed. I cringed because it reeked of gimmick. What Marvel Comics does (to be fair, DC Comics does the same thing) is create an "event"-a rather long and convoluted storyline-that is spread out over every title published by Marvel Comics. The reader is almost forced to buy every single comic in Marvel's lineup in order to understand what is going on in the story.
At $ 3.99 a comic, the gimmick pays off quite well for Marvel. It was also announced, around the same time, that there would be a Captain America movie (Captain America: The First Avenger; which is now being filmed), followed by a Thor movie (again being filmed), and then another Iron Man movie (Iron Man 3 for those of you keeping score). After all three of these films are completed Marvel Studios is going to start production on an Avengers movie. The Avengers movie will star all the players from the other Marvel movies, including Edward Norton as the Hulk. I can only assume that the major players signed contracts stating that they would do an Avengers movie.
Seeing Marvel Studios trying and pull the same gimmick in the movies left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I already had a biased view of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I knew that it wasn't going to be any good. There was no way that this was going to be any good. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the ending credits. I started enjoying Wolverine.
It isn't an Academy Award winning movie by any stretch of the imagination. The movie has its fair share of problems, but with these kinds of movies you have to expect some problems. For instance, after only one mission we are suppose to believe that Logan, Victor Creed and the rest of the commando unit are a tight knit group. I can buy that the rest of the group as a tight knitted group because we are told how they went on more missions after Logan left. But, how the whole group was tight with Logan is a mystery because they were only on one mission together.
What sets the movie in motion is the death of Logan's girlfriend, Kayla. Of course, she never died. It turned out that she was given a drug that slowed her heart down so that it appeared that she were dead. It's a pretty bad story device, but Shakespeare did the same thing, right? However, when he wrote Romeo and Juliet it hadn't been done a million times. But this isn't Shakespeare it's Wolverine. As far as storytelling is concerned, using the fake death ploy is not only played out, but it's a device used by weak writers. What makes her "death" even more ridiculous is the character of Wolverine. Wolverine is supposed to have heightened senses-smell, vision, taste, the whole nine yards-he would have known that Kayla wasn't dead. I watch enough TRU TV to know that dead bodies don't give off heat. Of course, it would take some time for the body to grow cold, but he would have felt her body growing colder. It gets even worse when we see Victor Creed pouring blood on her to "further" the illusion. Maybe I am going out on limb here, but wouldn't fresh blood smell different than blood that has been stored in a refrigerator somewhere? And why wouldn't he have noticed that there wasn't a mark on her?
It In Wolverine we finally learn how Logan lost his memories and the reason is just as cheesy as the faked death. It turns out that a bullet- an adamantium bullet- in the brain is the reason. But, we've seen Logan take a bullet to the brain before and nothing happened to him.
I need to point out that when we saw him get shot in the head in X-Men 2 the bullet was in his head. It didn't ricochet off his adamantium skull; the bullet went into his brain. We even see it pop out when he heals. So, why did one bullet take his memories and the other one didn't? Now I'm not a brain surgeon or a metallurgist, so I am only guessing when I say that any type of metal shot into your brain is a bad thing. The writers and the director could have chosen any number of ways that his memories could have been erased. For instance, they could have said that the process of grafting adamantium onto his bones was so painful that his mind shut down as a means to cope with the pain. There could have been some sort of malfunction to the equipment that resulted in the memory loss. An even better reason would be that his memories were erased on purpose!
Think about it. If you were the mad scientist creating the ultimate killing machine wouldn't you have wiped his memories? When he learns what you did to him and his girlfriends don't you think that he would be a little ticked off? Think of your own reasons. Anything would have been better than the reason that we were given.
I hate to say it because I like Ryan Reynolds, but there was zero reason that he should have been in the movie. Well, I guess there is one reason-Reynolds had already been cast to play Deadpool (A movie spin-off of a movie spin-off. Yeah, there's not gimmick there) in the upcoming movie. He delivers his lines in his trademarked sarcastic tone, but you get the feeling that there is somewhere else that Reynolds wants to be.
I know that it sounds like I just tore the whole movie apart, but I still found things in the movie that I enjoyed. The staples of superhero movies are well represented. Things blow up, guns are fired in ultra-cool ways, and bullets are sliced in mid-air. The special effects are great. The stand out scene is when Deadpool's head, eyes still blasting lasers, falls down one of 3 Mile Island's cooling towers and cuts it to pieces. Watching it crumble to the ground was a visual treat.
The fight scenes were well choreographed with no restrictions on cable work. In the opening credits we follow Logan and Victor as they move through history one war after another. Each war, beginning with the Revolutionary War, seamlessly flows into the next war finally stopping during the Vietnam War. Not only do the opening credits show the audience that the two characters have been around for centuries, it also manages to show what turned Victor into the monster that we see during the rest of the movie.
Wolverine is just as good as, if not better than, other superhero movies. Which to some people is not saying a lot, but if you look at the three main roles Wolverine does have a lot more talent than some other superhero movies. Hugh Jackman is a talented actor. To say that he is not a talented actor is simply not true. If you don't want to watch him sing and dance (which he has received a Tony Award for) then watch The Prestige, The Fountain, or Deception for proof that he has talent.
Jackman gets to a do little comedy to lighten the mood. Liev Schreiber, as Victor Creed, and Danny Huston, as William Stryker, compliment Jackman's performance perfectly. Before he came to the attention of mainstream audiences as Cotton Weary in the Scream trilogy, Schreiber starred in independent and small budget features. However, it has been in movies like The Hurricane, The Manchurian Candidate and Defiance that Schreiber has made a name for himself. He's often cast in good guy roles. As Victor Creed, he gets to show us that he can do mean and nasty too.
I have a list that I call "You May not Know the Name, but You Know the Face." I'm always adding names to it, but rarely am I taking names off. Danny Huston is easily in the top ten. If it weren't for the make up, that made him almost unrecognizable, fans of the comic genre would recognize him as the head vampire, Marlow, in 30 Days of Night. Others may remember him from The Number 23, Children of Men, Edge of Darkness,and in the critically acclaimed HBO mini-series John Adams.
A lesser actor would have portrayed William Stryker as a crazed maniac, a Dr. Frankenstein screaming "Its alive!", but not Huston. Huston plays Stryker with more reserve that manages to bring out the character's obsession more than any over the top acting could do.
There is a bigger reason why I liked Wolverine. What's that reason? I turned my brain off. Maybe not completely off, but definitely down several notches. You almost have to when you watch a superhero movie. For the most part, superhero movies are garbage. If you try and tear them to pieces, as critics like Ebert and Roper do on a regular basis and that I have briefly done, you won't enjoy them for what they are- good, mindless entertainment.
Do you have to be a comic book fan to enjoy Wolverine? No. In fact, you will enjoy the movie more if you aren't a comic book fan. You won't get bogged down with the things that will perturb your average comic book reader. Just be a fan of good action movies, turn the DVD player on, your brain off and enjoy the movie.
Average August 25, 2010
Patrick
If you like superhero movies then you'll enjoy this one. If they're not really your thing, then you may not enjoy this one all that much. The special effects are pretty bad, especially for a big budget movie like this one, but it's always fun to see Wolverine in action.
 The mystery behind Wolverine's past....unveiled! August 19, 2010
Ronald L. Russell (Pangaea)
Those who have followed the X-men trilogy know that Wolverine has some mysterious history, but lacks memory of any of it. This movie explores his history, which is much deeper than anyone could have possibly expected. We know that he has experienced a process by which adamantium was bonded to his bones, but what we didn't know is that, even before he underwent those experiments, he was....different.
We meet Wolverine as a child, along with his differently-abled brother, and watch them grow up, always on the move to prevent local people from catching on.
As in the other X-men films there is something of a formula, by now well honed: bursts of action/chase/fighting separated by longer periods of story and dialog establishing the convictions of the characters. As the movie progresses, the action becomes more frequent and intense, until a huge showdown conclusion, with a brief epilog looking toward the future.
I appreciated seeing how Wolverine's character and personality were shaped by the experiences which he had undergone as he grew up, and how, strangely, his brother had shared many of those same experiences, yet chosen a different path. This seemed very insightful to me, and very reflective of true life.
X-men Origins also features a few characters from some of the other X-men films, at a younger stage in their lives, plus introduces a few new characters.
Although I hadn't read X-men comic books in decades, I've enjoyed all the movies in the series, this one as much as any of them. Recommended!
FORCED TRAILERS YUCK August 18, 2010
S. Grant
CONTAINS FORCED TRAILERS no F/forward only mute option. ANNOYING. Hope this goes out of style. What were they thinking?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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