X-Men Origins: WOLVERINE (2009) is a prequel to the recent X-Men trilogy of films, part of what promises to be a continuing series of "origin" and contemporary X-Men films  (supposedly one about Ian McKellan's Magneto is next).  Again, this is based on a comic book character, with which I am not familiar (Wikipedia has many useful articles on X-Men comics written by people who take them seriously), so I will confine myself to the movie persona, which here and in the previous films was acted by Hugh Jackman.

In case you spent the last couple of decades in a third world re-education camp, I'll explain that the X-Men are all "mutants", each with a different superhuman power - and very considerable stamina and recuperative energy.  One of them (misnamed Cyclops) shoots powerful laser beams from his eyes that cut through whatever he looks at without dark glasses.  Another can generate lightning bolts, another can morph into the perfect likeness of any person, etc.  Wolverine is the one who, in addition to being tremendously strong and impervious to injury, can cause his knuckles to sprout razor sharp knife blades, not unlike Freddy Kruger.

The second movie (X2: X-Men United, 2003) gave us little clues to Wolverine's history:  His name, all he knew of it, was Logan -- not sure if that was his last or first name.  The farthest back he could remember was approximately a dozen years to being the subject of some hideous medical experiments for the military under the direction of an evil technocrat William Stryker. That, and the fact that the blades that sprang from his knuckles were made of the mysterious but super-hard metal, adamantium.

So in this movie we have his life story:  Back in 1845 Canada the sickly youth James Logan sees his father murdered by the brutal father of his best buddy (and half-brother) Victor.  In a rage he attacks the killer and, for the first time, his mutation presents itself - ivory blades like alligator teeth sprout from his knuckles.  He kills his father's killer and then he and Victor take to the woods and keep running.  It turns out Victor himself is also a mutant with somewhat similar talents -- when needed his fingernails turn into supersharp bear claws (in the comic books but not this movie, he is known as Sabretooth).  It turns out both of them are impervious to physical injuries, healing instantly.

The next thing we know they are grown men (Hugh Jackman as James, Liev Schreiber as Victor) fighting side by side for the Union in the American Civil War, then the Spanish American War, and both World Wars, and Korea.  Evidently once they reached manhood they ceased to age and became immortal, and being immune to injuries they are essentially the perfect soldier.  In Vietnam, Victor's bloodthirst and James' loyalty to Victor, get them both sentenced to death by firing squad.  But when they survive their execution they are freed by Colonel William Stryker (Danny Huston) to become part of his deluxe all-mutant commando squad.  The other commandos include one who can teleport himself instantly (Will I Am), a super accurate sniper (David North),  one who can generate electricity (Dominic Monaghan) and one who can use samurai swords to repel bullets (Ryan Reynolds).  They go on a variety of missions, the last one to Africa to find all the fragments of a mysterious meteorite.  Stryker's willingness to torture and kill finally disgusts James and he quits the unit in the middle of the jungle.

Years pass.  The commandoes have retired, though some without signs of aging.  James is now a lumberjack in the Canadian north woods, engaged to marry Native American beauty Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins).  But it seems that his past comes to haunt him.  In short order, Kayla is killed by Victor, and Stryker offers James a method of revenge.  As he is now, with his ivory blades, James cannot kill Victor, but Stryker will use the metal from that meteorite - adamantium - to infuse all of James' bones including the mutant blades, and then James can kill even Victor.  It's an incredibly painful process but James cannot be anesthetized.  However, Stryker was planning a double cross .... and further on there's yet another double cross. 

This is an action movie with a lot of special effects.  The closing credits list more special effects companies working on this one film than I knew even existed.  Among the other performers, Taylor Kitsch as a mutant called Gambit, Julia Blake as a very nice farmer's wife, Asher Keddie as an attractive doctor working for Stryker, Tahyna Tozzi as Kayla's sister,  Scott Adkins as a sort of super-dangerous mutant, and Patrick Stewart reprising his role as (a younger) Prof. Xavier.

THis film shows us courage, loyalty, and compassion.  We actually start to empathize with Hugh Jackman's character, something that wasn't so easy in the previous films.  Liev Schreiber does a very job as well, and we might see him pop up again in a future X-Men movie.  We have a pretty thorough story - especially considering that it covers more than 150 years.  We see interesting character development and gain some insight into the X-Men series (which looks like it's got more films in the pipeline).  Hitherto, the X-Men movies dealt only with relatively simple plots and were devoted entirely to special effects, this movie actually offers us some character background.  But keep in mind, this story is of a comic book character; keep that limitation in mind and lower your expectations a bit.

The film is rated PG (mostly for violence) and runs 1 hour 47 minutes.  Watch the closing credits to the very end.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older