.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

I was a comic book collector growing up, and The Uncanny X-Men were my series of choice. Somewhere in a closet located in one of the spare rooms, there are over 250 boxed, bagged and boarded X-Men and Wolverine comics that I collected until around 1991.

And while that hardly makes me an expert when it comes to a comic book character being put into a live action film, it does put me in a better position to review than say, The Harry Potter series to which I have never read a single page.

Wolverine has long been a fan favorite and his no-nonsense every-day-man's-anger was very much appreciated when other characters such as Cyclops and The Silver Surfer seemed drab and boring. Hugh Jackman first played the role of Wolverine in the first X-Men movie back in 2000 after actor Dougray Scott had to leave the production. The film was a summer blockbuster and raked in over $300 million during its worldwide release and Wolverine (sorry Storm and Professor X), was the film's star.

A sequel was inevitable and the band of mutants were back three years later in X2 : X-Men United. Exploiting the popularity of the Wolverine character, director Bryan Singer created a story which had Logan (Wolverine) heading back to Canada to seek answers as to his past. The film had an opening weekend of over $85 million and guaranteed the sequel would soon become part of a trilogy.

And that came with X-Men: The Last Stand which hit theatres in 2006. Although the story was the weakest of the three entries, The Last Stand was the most successful of the series and with Fox Studios now having a $1 billion dollar franchise on their lot, a Wolverine spin-off was a logical and inevitable conclusion.

The question that will soon be answered is if a single X-Men character can carry the weight of launching the summer blockbuster film slate. After two viewings over opening weekend, the answer is mixed.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine brings back Oscar emcee Jackman as our favorite Canuck with claws. We see Wolverine as a child and the film does a good job of explaining how Logan (Wolverine) went from having bone claws to adamantium metal. We learn that his brother is Sabretooth (played with zeal by Liev Shreiber) and the opening sequence shows the two of them fighting in various world conflicts before being recruited by William Stryker (Danny Huston who steps into the role played by Brian Cox in the earlier films).

Stryker puts together an elite killing team which includes Sabretooth, Wolverine and others with cool names like Wraith (will.i.am), Agent Zero and Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). The team of mercenaries travels the world in an effort to bring peace through their violence until Wolverine leaves the group for moral reasons and heads back to Canada.

It is back in the Canadian mountains that Wolverine finds love in with Kayla (Lynn Collins). But when Sabretooth starts hunting down members of the old team and Kayla ends up being killed, Wolverine leaves his life of solitude to avenge her death and to bring an end to his brother's evil plans.

For a running time of just 107 minutes, there is a lot packed into Wolverine. Maybe too much. There is a tremendous amount of story. We have the origin's story, the revenge story, the rival brother's story and there is a larger sub-plot involving Stryker's attempts to capture and use as many mutants as possible in an attempt to make the perfect weapon. A bit much going on for a comic book film.

The special effects and action sequences in Wolverine are top rate. Wolverine's battle on a motorcycle against a gunship helicopter and two armored vehicles was thrilling and the end sequence on an island where Stryker was keeping his jailed mutants was equally thrilling.

But all the special effects and over reaching plot coupled with meeting more mutants than you can shake a stick at (The Blob, Cyclops, Bolt), were just a bit much to chew for a faithful audience that just wants to be entertained from the books to the screen. And having Wolverine upstaged by card throwing Gambit (Taylor Kitsch) was maybe a good thing for his franchise (expect to see a Gambit movie in production phases any day now), but it did take away from our sideburned heroes moments.

This doesn't make Wolverine a bad film. It just won't stand out when the entire summer releases are done and we are able to review each entry against each other.