Why I Saw It: I like the X-Men franchise in general and First Class had me hoping they got their act together.
Cast: Hugh Jackman is always great as Wolverine. I'm by no means a comic fan so I don't care about stuff like Wolverine needing to be shorter and all that other crap that people complain about. I'm starting to wonder home much longer he's going to be able to pull off this role though. He doesn't seem to be slipping yet. Of the main cast, he is absolutely the only actor I know. Tao Okamoto plays the woman he is trying to protect and Rila Fukushima is "his body guard" and both get a couple "every Japanese person knows karate" moments. Svetlana Khodchenkova is the only antagonistic mutant and little more. Hal Yamanouchi is the person who kickstarts the series of events as a response to Logan saving him in WWII. Famke Janssen's in it a lot but all as part of nightmares.
Plot: I'll say this much. The story in this one is far more focused than Origins. The plot points are what's you'd expect. There was a surprising lack of mutants in it, so much of the movie is demigod Wolverine kicking the ass of a lot of non-mutants which is a little boring. The big promise of the movie is that he has to do this without his ability to heal and that's done half-assed. He's still way more powerful than other people and seems to heal, only not nearly as quickly. As the kids say: that's weak sauce. As for Jean, it's been seven years since her and Wolverine were last in a movie together, so am I just forgetting a time when they were ever together? She was with Cyclops the whole time and had a sort of flirtatious thing going on with Logan.What I'm trying to say is why is she haunting his dreams so much?
Elephant in the Room: Does Wolverine really need another standalone movie? I know, right. I've heard that part of the reason for making this movie was to keep Jackman happy because he was interested in this storyline from the comics but this movie was missing something: more mutants. It's X-Men not X-Man.What makes the other movies work is the ensemble and the greater world struggles. The unrest over the treatment of mutants. The fear of them by non-mutants. The internal conflict of the mutants. This movie is far more internalized to Logan and his immortality, which is all and good had that not been covered in Origins.
To Sum Things Up:
The X-Men series is damned if they do, damned if they don't with me because I probably came away from previous ones saying "there's so many characters in this. I wish they would pick one and focus on him." I still say that could be fun to see, but this movie is so far removed that it is virtually of a different world entirely. I suppose this could be reverse-engineered in future movies like, coincidentally enough Tokyo Drift has been given context in the Fast & Furious series, but right now, this appears to be a completely disposable entry in the series. Not bad. Not exceptional. Just solid.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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