Quick Review of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'

In preparation for this year's X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2 weeks, I saw this 1st Wolverine prequel spin-off on my iPad last month. Now I understand why everybody disliked this film as much as X-Men: The Last Stand, even if I initially enjoyed it 5 years ago. Despite exploring more of Logan's past, it unfortunately failed to live up to the concept and completely lacked the violent nature that made Wolverine the most popular X-Men character in Marvel history. The only good part in X-Men Origins is the beginning with Logan first discovering his claws as a Canadian child in 1845 before he ran off with half-brother Victor Creed (soon to be his archenemy Sabretooth) to participate in the coming battles from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. Another only good scene is the part with Team X led by William Stryker, the main enemy of the "greatest X-Men movie of all time," X2: X-Men United. The end of the Weapon X procedure was like my least favorite scene ever. While it felt awesome the way Logan awakens after being injected with a seemingly-powerful metal called adamantium, he just didn't kill enough of Stryker's guards to make him as violent as he was in the flashbacks seen in X2. I mean, seriously, "the production team not satisfied with the Weapon X facility design"? I thought that was perfect as it is in one of Logan's memories in the 2nd X-Men movie! Why change it!? What Wolverine did upon receiving these metal claws is EXACTLY how he should be! Especially how the facility is designed compared to this! Very dark and gritty! Precisely why I see X-Men Origins: Wolverine first and THEN X2: X-Men United just to make me FORGET the poorly-handled Weapon X procedure! That part should NOT be "officially canon" in the X-Men movie universe! Treat this movie as a STANDALONE spin-off prequel (not "directly linked" to the other predecessors) like how Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is treated as a standalone sequel with NO DIRECT CONNECTION to the 2007 one. To make Wolverine fans happy, the X2 flashbacks of Weapon X should be OFFICIALLY REAL, NOT as "distorted memories." I can see why the action and the overall tone in the video game version of X-Men Origins is way more intense than the movie.

Now as for the "Merc with the Mouth," I wasn't completely upset with how Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds, was handled in the end for I am unaware with this character. But once I realized that "Weapon XI" and Wade Wilson/Deapool are the same person, I actually like him better when he was still Wade in the Team X Mission to Lagos sequence. The only part that made Ryan Reynolds THE Deadpool is his non-stop chattering with his fellow teammates and the way he fights with his man-made swords to kill the guys guarding the precious metal (revealed to be adamantium) that Team X were actually after. But at least that the post-credits scene (now mostly paired with the movie in DVDs/Blu-rays) shows that he is still alive despite having his head cut off by Wolverine. And the way he shushes at the audience thus "breaking the 4th wall," this is a perfect opportunity to see more of him (IN COSTUME, THIS TIME) in his very own Deadpool movie starring Ryan Reynolds once again! That is if Fox has the guts to get it into immediate production due to the graphic violent content. But for now, the only non-comic book media that features Deadpool we will have to stick with is the 37-minute long animated film Hulk vs. Wolverine, his underrated titular video game, and the infamous Ultimate Spider-Man TV episode starring his namesake.
So overall, it feels like we've already learned how Logan got these adamantium claws in the 1st two X-Men films. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is basically a movie with VERY FEW plot points that live up to the title and has too many superfluous characters (like Fred Dukes/The Blob, Gambit, and young Scott Summers) and subplots (mutant prisoners and combining powers to create Weapon XI) with no importance to the story. And because of the Three Mile Island Accident scene, it makes it very hard to decide whether this film IS set "15 years" before Logan ever met the X-Men in the "not too distant future" (specifically the 2000s). It's almost as if this Wolverine movie may have to be completely ignored by fans, no matter how "canon" it is. However, the only X-Men Origins: Wolverine details that I can respectfully honor to join the X-Men movie continuity is Logan's first mutation as a kid, his participation in the wars and Team X, the source of adamantium, and his relationship with Sabretooth (before their last encounter in the 1st X-Men) and Kayla. But at least we have the X-Men 1990s Animated Series episodes "The Repo Men" and "Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape" that will tell the origin story of Wolverine a whole lot better than this so-called Wolverine movie! Glad that last summer's The Wolverine, set after X-Men 3 while taking Logan straight to Japan, made up for that mistake and truly shows how Hugh Jackman is awesome as the claw-slashing mutant who knows that "he is the best at what he does, and what he does isn't very nice"!