Crying Wolf
X-MEN ORIGINS: Wolverine
Almost every superhero has spawned multiple sequels. And the story of Wolverine’s past is begging to be told, given that this mysterious and most-popular of the mutants doesn’t remember any of it. So, screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods had a big leeway—they could have gone anywhere and everywhere. But nowhere do we get an idea how Wolverine becomes what he does.

When the film starts, Wolverine is a rather sickly child called Jimmy Logan, fighting another bout of cold. His friend Victor is keeping him company. Within minutes though, Victor’s Dad has killed Jimmy’s. As Jimmy strikes out at him in anger, he finds long, wolf-like nails growing out of his knuckles. In his dying moments, Victor’s Dad says it is he who is Jimmy’s real father, and Victor runs away with the boy, telling him they have to look out for each other.

The opening credits that follow are perhaps the most impressive moments of X-Men Origins, encapsulating through four wars—the Civil War, WWI, WWII and, yes, Vietnam —the pitfalls of being indestructible, when you live too long to see much more than you care for. We watch Victor (Liev Schreiber) grow more and more violent and out of control, and Jimmy (Hugh Jackman) more and more skeptical.

However, the crisp edginess that Gavin Hood displays in these few shots are never replicated. Rather than focusing on the two brothers who are similar but narrowly apart, too much energy and time are expended on Major William Stryker (Danny Huston), who has none of the menace of the villains of the previous X-Men, including the Stryker played by Brian Cox. It is hard to see the ineffable, cool bureaucrat as running an entire group of mutants and the US Army around his little finger. Schreiber, on the contrary, is terribly good, evoking a whiff of unpredictability in his every screen moment. With Jackman his proficient self (just doing that much for his fourth Wolverine appearance), this could have been an altogether different film if it revolved around the two of them. It doesn’t help that rather than natural power or innate goodness, what eventually puts Wolverine along the path of uniqueness is a scientific experiment. (A hero with an unfair advantage… what were they thinking?)

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