-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE 2.5**** To begin with, I am not an X-Men fan and have only seen one of the other movies. I have not read the comic books or other comic “lore” on X-Men, so I don't have any preconceived notions about how the story should have been done to be true to the Marvel Comics version. You’ll have to be the judge of that.

A movie is good…is memorable when there are touching, thoughtful moments, interesting characters, funny or “feel-good” scenes, great action or remarkable cinematography. “Iron Man” and “Dark Knight” were such movies. “Wolverine” is not although it’ does manage to shine in the first 20 minutes with the montage of the 4 or more wars Wolverine ( Hugh Jackman, of course) and his brother, Victor ( Live Schreiber), fought in ( Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean and Viet Nam)…how do they do that you ask…well they are pretty much indestructible because they are mutants. Also, in the “shine” category is an early sequence involving an elite team of mutants that includes Wolverine and Victor. The team goes on special forces type missions that become more and inhumane and result in Wolverine leaving the team. This was a fairly good story line that unfortunately was too short-lived.

The relationship between Wolverine and brother Victor is the backbone of the story. It’s a modern day Cain v. Able! They get to where they hate each other and fight constantly over many things….even, it seems, over who has the best looking press-on nails and animal howl…and this goes on in scene after scene with them repeatedly facing off, charging, colliding and scratching and clawing each other..and this eventually left me scratching my head. These Battling Blade Brother's feud never really makes much sense and just when it seems to, it contradicts itself.

Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) was voted the Sexiest Men Alive in 2008, and the Marvel Movie Machine obviously decided to capitalize on this as Jackman spends most of the movie shirtless, greased up with muscles rippling ….much to the delight I’m sure of the female movie goers. Admittedly Jackman is one handsome, marvelous physical specimen, and it is fine to have a great looking star for a movie but it still comes down to having a good script and story which is missing here. Nonetheless, Jackman is top-notch. He effectively captures the internal struggle between Wolverine's human side and animal instincts and provides great action scenes in this big, loud blockbuster movie. Liev Schreiber is also great as Victor (a/k/a Sabertooth). He is mean and vicious without going over-the top, witty without being pretentious. Both Jackman and Schreiber are the glue that holds this film together and provide most of the sparkling moments.

“Wolverine” is good but it could have been a lot better particularly when compared to “Batman Begins” and “Superman Returns”…perhaps the problem with is that there are just too many cooks or mutants in the kitchen ??? And it seemed too much of a “been there, seen that” for me and I’ve only seen 1 of the other 3 X-Men movies.

Clark