It had been a long time since my wife and I had gone to see a movie at the theater, but we’re both action movie and X-Men fans, so we decided that going to see Wolverine was something we just had to do! Lucky for us, we went on a night when the theater had multiple screens showing the movie, so there were good seats, and the prices were even discounted. Typically a ticket in Singapore costs 10 to 11 bucks, but our tickets were only 8.50. We booked our tickets 21 hours in advance of the showing, which was a smart move because they were selling out fast.
I didn’t really know what to expect going into this movie. The third X-Men movie was sort of a let down. It didn’t seem to follow along with the story in the comic at all. Also, I’d scanned over a few articles about the movie and I saw a lot of negative comments.
Luckily, we decided to find out for ourselves. Wolverine is definitely worth seeing on the big screen! It was packed with action and gave a lot of background history to one of my favorite characters. I say I’m an X-Men fan, but I stopped reading comics over a decade ago. Still, I remember being excited any time Wolverine was involved in a story. I always wondered where he came from, and when I watched the other X-Men movies it renewed my interest in where he was from and why he did the things he did.
The first few minutes of the movie give a brief overview of Wolverine’s first hundred or so odd years. I remember reading someone’s complaint that they felt it was unnecessary, but I think the movie would’ve been a bit confusing without it. You’ll get a rough idea of how old Wolverine is, how his powers first developed, why he has such an aggressive personality, and what his relationship with Sabertooth really is.
The rest of the movie played out nicely and filled in a lot of the gaps about the years just prior to his meeting Rogue. The only part that confused me a bit is why Professor X didn’t recognize Wolverine when he met him later (in the first X-Men movies). He was present at the island and was in mental contact with Scott Summers, which means he should have been able to detect Wolverine’s presence as well. On top of that, why didn’t any of the people present there every mention Wolverine to Professor X? Why did no one ever make the connection?
Despite that, the movie is still fantastic. You get backstory, action, some new characters (like Gambit) and it leaves you excited to see what they’ll come up with next.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just wanted to use this opportunity to point out that taking infants or 3 year olds into a movie theater isn’t the brightest thing to do. Some little punk was kicking my seat, hanging off it, hanging off my shoulder, and making noise right behind my head during the majority of the movie. I kept having to turn around in my seat and stare down his parents before they would grab the kid and sit him back down. Then, they would apparently get caught up in the movie and there he would be, hanging off my chair or shoulder again. If you’re going to take your kids into a theater, try to make sure the only one they’re bothering is you, or someone (not as nice as me) may lose their temper and club them like a baby seal. I mention infants because at the start of the movie I heard a baby crying. Wolverine isn’t a kid’s movie.
Bradley Farless 