Wolverine - "Every single time."

This rocked.

Seriously, I can't imagine why it got such negative reviews. I mean, prequels are sort of problematic because you know in advance who's going to live through 'em, but that honestly didn't detract much from the movie. The main complaint I could see people having about the movie is that it's not terribly realistic, but for crying out loud it's a movie about a guy with a metal skeleton and claws. It's not supposed to be realistic.

What it is supposed to be was Wolverine chopping things up as various tragic things happen all around him. The plot twists and turns in a rather comic book-like way and there are many fights and explosions. It has everything you would really want from a Wolverine movie. I guess if you don't have any particular Wolverine-related desires, you could conceivably be disappointed, but I think most of the film's detractors must have their heads up their ass.

Was it as good as X2? No, probably not, although it does get bonus points for not having Halle Berry. But it was still a damn good watch.

Spoiler talk after the jump.

(If you ever get the chance, see if you can read the Marvel Wolverine Origins story, it's quite good)
I'm going to keep this short, so let me hit on some key points:

1) The intro sequence was damn good.

The whole point of the Wolverine character is to be this incredibly tortured creature that clings to a minuscule amount of goodness in a world where everything bad has happened to him. The war montage got that across, while also doing a good job of differentiating between him and Sabertooth. I thought it was genius.

2) The plot was wacky.

This is what all the critics on rotten tomatoes seem to agree on, but I'm not sure how it wasn't more twisty or farfetched than X2. Yes the 'Achtung, spy!' bit and 'he was working for me all along' stuff is loopy, but it's not hard to follow and this is what comic book storylines are like. I don't see why this is a bad thing in Wolverine and not in X2. X2 has mind-control drugs leeched out of a wheelchair psychic guy and two attempts at psychic genocide.

I think a lot of these 'oh the plot sucks' people are just hopping aboard a bandwagon. The main problem with the plot is that it's a prequel and you know generally what's going to happen. Content-wise, it was comic-booky but I sort of want comic-booky when it comes to comic book movies.

3) Hugh Jackman is too clean.

He plays a great Wolverine and I wouldn't have any one else. And most of the time he looks fine... grizzled and weary, just like you'd expect Wolverine to be. But there are certain scenes where the guy will look at the camera after a rough fight and just shine with excessive prettiness. Yes, I realize that Mr. Jackman has a female following to be concerned with, but they could've gone a little easy on the make-up.

4) Some of the minor characters are pretty stupid.

I think Marvel writers are partially spoiled by their movie success and think they can insert whatever bollocks characters they please into their movie. I'm not even talking about Blob (his scene was at least funny), but rather the throwaway mutants like Agent Zero or the guy with the swords. The Marvel universe has always been about a solid backing of b-list gimmick characters, but that doesn't mean that those clowns should get into the movies. Though I guess they aren't that much worse than your Toads or what have you, so this isn't a Wolverine-specific problem.

I didn't mind the last guy though, if only because it's sort of been established that that's the kind of thing that Stryker apparently likes.

5) The adamantium bullets thing was also stupid, but it's not the kind of thing I dwell on because (again) it's a bloody comic book movie.