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DVDfever.co.uk – X-Men Origins: Wolverine Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Blu-ray: 
DVD:
Blu-ray Collection:
DVD Collection:
- Cert:
- Running time: 107 minutes
- Year: 2009
- Released: October 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 28
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio Lossless, Audio Descriptive Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: DTS: English, French; Dolby Digital only: Spanish, Portguese
- Subtitles: English for hearing impaired, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £28.99 (Blu-ray); £19.99 (DVD), £67.99 (Blu-ray Collection); £29.99 (DVD Collection)
- Extras: The Roots of Wolverine: A conversation with Stan Lee and Len Wein, Wolverine Unleashed: The Complete Origins,Weapon X Mutant Files, The Thrill of the Chase: The Helicopter Sequence, Ultimate X-Mode, Deleted and alternate scenes,World Premiere, Fox on Blu-ray, Bonus DVD and Digital Copy, Audio Commentaries, Live Lookup, Audio Description
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Gavin Hood
(In Desert and Wilderness, A Reasonable Man, Rendition, The Storekeeper, Tsotsi, X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
Producers:
- Hugh Jackman, John Palermo, Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter
Screenplay:
- David Benioff and Skip Woods
Original Score :
- Harry Gregson-Williams
Cast :
- Logan/Wolverine: Hugh Jackman
Victor Creed: Liev Schreiber
William Stryker: Danny Huston
John Wraith: Will.i.am
Kayla Silverfox: Lynn Collins
Fred Dukes/Blob: Kevin Durand
Chris Bradley/Bolt: Dominic Monaghan
Remy LeBeau/Gambit: Taylor Kitsch
David North/Agent Zero: Daniel Henney
Wade Wilson/Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds
Scott Summers: Tim Pocock
John Howlett: Peter O’Brien
Elizabeth Howlett: Alice Parkinson
James Howlett: Troye Sivan
Dog (Young Creed): Michael-James Olsen
Thomas Logan: Aaron Jeffery
General Munson: Stephen Leeder
Emma Frost/Kayla’s sister: Tahyna Tozzi
Weapon XI: Scott Adkins
Professor Charles Xavier: Patrick Stewart (uncredited)
It’s Canada, 1845, and a young Wolverine, aka Logan, suddenly finds out who he is with pure rage.
This comes about when he’s ill in bed and hears his Dad bursting into their house and kicking up a stink between his ex,and Logan’s mother, Elizabeth (Alice Parkinson), now living a happier life with her new husband, John (PeterO’Brien, aka Shane Ramsay from Neighbours). However, that all changes when a shot rings out and John is killed.The Wolverine talons start to come through his knuckles and his conscience tells him to do what he knows is right…after which, he hot-foots it out of the house, with his brother, Victor Creed, following shortly.
As the credits begin, we see an older Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) fighting in the American Civil War alongsideVictor (Liev Schreiber, right with Jackman), before proving that they’ll always be there for each other by also decking JohnnyForeigner in the World War I trenches before being one of the few men to survive the D-Day landings of World War II,then going through Vietnam, but tensions get the better of Victor and he gets a little bit too bloodthirsty to thepoint where he starts attacking the good guys, leading to death by firing squad for both of them… which, obviously,doesn’t kill them.
Enter army bloke William Stryker (Danny Huston) who says he’s putting a special team together with specialprivilidges, and he’s signing both of them up because they no longer have a choice. First mission is to Lagos, Nigeriawhere they won’t be sorting out an email scam but it proves too much for our hero who storms out and leaves them to it,shacking up in the Canadian Rockies with new squeeze Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins, below-right, centre in pic). However, time passesand soon she ends up dead at the hands of Victor, the moment of death being something that we don’t get to see.
The only way he can defeat Victor is to team up with Stryker and get an operation to have his body destroyed and putback together with Adamantium, making him virtually indestructible and turning him into Weapon X. Turns out Adamantiumwas what Stryker went looking for in Nigeria and this is the end result. However, once the operation is complete, there’sno time for convalescing as, for circumstances that will soon become obvious, he escapes and is off in search of Victor.
As the film begins, we’re introduced to a few mutant superheroes such as Dominic Monaghan as Bolt, who is ableto control electricity, Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, a master with swords, Will.i.am asteleporter John Wraith and Daniel Henney as Zero, a fast shooter who redefines fast. There are others alongthe way but to reveal these here would include spoilers.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a film that passes nearly two hours in a reasonably entertaining way,although there are times when it drags a bit. No one member of the cast is particularly acting their socks off, they’remostly going through the motions once their characters are established, although with the main man we already know howhe’s going to behave.
The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and looks as highly detailed as you’d expect ahigh-definition picture to look, either for indoor or outdoor scenes and especially in the many scenes featuring fights,chases and explosions. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen with a Samsung BDP1500 player.
The sound comes in DTS HD 5.1, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 formats.I haven’t got a DTS HD setup, which allows for a 7.1 surround speaker setup, but then I haven’t got the room for thateither, so DTS 5.1 will do for me. In short, the audio matches the visuals described above.
The extras are as follows:
- The Roots of Wolverine: A conversation with Stan Lee and Len Wein (16:18): Stan Lee needs no introduction, while I didn’t know Len Wein was the co-creator of Wolverine. And this segment doesexactly what it says on the tin.
- Wolverine Unleashed: The Complete Origins (12:05): How the fact it was necessary to go into detail about the character’s beginnings. This segment features chat fromHugh Jackman, director Gavin Hood and various cast and crew members, amongst clips of the film.
- Weapon X Mutant Files (53:57): 10 featurettes with info on the other superhero characters in the film, aside from Wolverine. These segments aren’textensive but give a brief background to them so is certainly worth a look if you want to know more.
- The Thrill of the Chase: The Helicopter Sequence (5:53): One of the big explosion moments of the film. Without giving any spoilers, this is how they made it so cool.
- Ultimate X-Mode : Four ways to watch the film:
- X-Connect: Erm, no idea about this one. It just made white noise appear in spurts as the film began. However, thenI fast-forwarded a bit and then it went away and I could play what I missed. This happened on the other X-mode optionstoo.
- The Director’s Chair: The director appears in a small window, bottom-right, but there goes the white noise again.
- Pre-visualising Wolverine: More picture-in-picture content.
- X-Facts: Facts pop up during the film.
- Deleted and alternate scenes (10:15): All with optional director’s commentary, there are just four here. I think the longer, alternate scene that’s placedthird here would be better than what was in the final film but I’d best not spoil it here.
- World Premiere (6:22): A Fox TV special. This is a bit of a waste of time.
- Fox on Blu-ray (3:23): Trailers for the X-Men trilogy and Night at the Museum 2.
- Bonus DVD and Digital Copy: The former is obvious, the latter is a format you can put on your PSP, Ipod, etc.
- Audio Commentaries: One from director Gavin Hood, the other from producers Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter
- Live Lookup: Connect your Blu-ray player to the internet and it sounds like you’ll be able to info the IMDB page for this film. I’venever got my player to go online properly before, so you can also just go here.
The main menu features theme music from the film with footage of Wolverine in the film.There are subtitles in several different languages – although oddly these appear where the characters are positionedwhich is somewhat distracting; and there are 28 chapters to the film which is perfectly fine.If you’re a fan of this film, then the fantastic set of extras which make the package well worth a purchase.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.