The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in the comic books in September 1963. Lee wrote the dialog for the characters while Kirby drew the artwork.
Wolverine's first appearance was in the Incredible Hulk comic book in October 1974 and the creator of the character was Len Stein and John Romita Sr.
It was May 1975 when the character joined the X-Men. In 1982 the character was revised and his line "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice" first appeared.
Although this film features elements of the comic books it changes and reworks many things and that may upset some purists who grew up reading the comics.
The Wolverine character is roughly 120 years old and has special healing abilities and three retractable claws.
The Wolverine sequel will start in Japan.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prequel and concentrates on the characters early life before his skeleton was bonded with the almost indestructible metal adamantium.
The film introduces Victor Creed as his half brother who would later turn into Sabretooth.
Liev Schreiber bulked up for the part of Creed by workouts in a gym for three months and eating a special diet. The original plan was to put a special outfit on him to make him look bigger and this would be similar to the outfit Vinnie Jones wore in X-Men: The Last Stand but Schreiber felt uncomfortable about this and asked for time to build his own body up.
Film Plot
Major William Stryker recruits half brothers James Logan and Victor Creed into his mutant Team X program but after an attack on an African village where innocents are harmed Logan walks away from the team.
Logan finds love and wants to live a normal life with his beautiful wife Kayla but his past as a member of Team X comes back to haunt him.
After his wife is murdered Stryker offers Logan a chance of revenge and he agrees to a procedure which will bond his bone with that of adamantium. He discovers Stryker is planning to double cross him and escapes to be pursued across the country. Thanks to adamantium Logan is now super powerful and very hard to kill and he takes the name Wolverine.
Wolverine learns some terrible news concerning his brother Victor and the scenario is set for revenge. All though is not quite as it seems and soon Weapon XI aka Deadpool will be unleashed on the world.
Positives
It was great to see Team X in action and Wade with his two swords. Negatives
I felt the film could have explored the relationship between Victor and Logan a bit better as it's obvious they have spent at least over eighty years of their life together but we tend to see this reflected in vignettes early on in the film. I felt the first half of the film was much stronger and i felt that the second half became more predictable and less edgy.
It's possible that the need to tie the character of Wolverine in with the first X-Men film meant taking decisions with the script during that second half of the film that made it more predictable.
Sound quality was a bit diminished on this release and it left me wondering if they altered it for a home remix and lowered the dynamic range.
As i mention in the positives i felt split surround activity was good and speech was always clear but the bass was not nearly as deep as i have come to expect from these movies and dynamics seemed restrained.
The house exploding was visually spectacular but the bass in that scene underwhelmed me.
When Gambit's staff hits the ground shortly afer we are introduced to him i expected more more subwoofer deep bass than the scene delivered.
Bass was a disappointment for me.
I wonder if they mixed the film less aggressively or whether this is a poorer home remix.
Perhaps sound mixers are now holding back a little on the very deepest bass in these films.
I should explain that my subwoofer is very capable and can extend easily to around 12hz and i have many films where at the deepest and very lowest bass the air in the room will literally be alive with bass and you will feel it and not just hear it and i just did not get that from this film.
Final Thoughts
This was a decent prequel and i liked a lot of the first half of the story which i felt had more bite to it. I was glad they had an editor on board who kept the film at an entertaining length rather than the usual tendency these days to release a bloated overlong film.
It would be interesting to see what they could do with a full blooded R rated Wolverine film but it will never happen as the budget for these movies mean they must keep to the more commercial PG-13 certificate.
It would be nice if for the sequel which will feature the character in Japan they could film additional alternate scenes and at least give us an R rated cut for the home market.
I do not like the tendency to remix films for the home and lower the dynamic range. I have read film mixers saying it is done because when played at lower volumes people are missing out on things in the soundtrack or cannot properly hear the dialogue but i feel it lowers the quality of the track.
I have to ask why bother with lossless audio if they are going to reduce the dynamic range to cater for those who do not want to or cannot play at higher volumes.
There is enough space on these discs to provide the original unaltered cinema soundtrack and provide a remixed for the home track. Give us the choice and let us choose and do not water down the sound just to cater for those who wish to play at lower volumes.
Some remixes for the home do sound fabulous but i do wish they would also provide the original unaltered cinema track in lossless form and give us the option on what track to listen to.
I enjoyed Wolverine and do look forward to the sequel but i would like to see a bit more edge added to him and hope they allow more of his unpredictable nature to come through rather than keeping strictly to formulaic situations and predictable outcomes.
Technical Disc Specifications