<i>Academy Award</i>-winning director, Gavin Hood, unraveled the fourth <i>X-men</i> movie called <i>X-Men Origins: Wolverine</i> on May 1, 2009. The story included characters from the older series, while it also introduced new ones. At the start of it all, the main character, James Logan, and his older brother, Victor Creed, run away together as children after seeing Logan kill their biological father who had murdered Logan’s adoptive father. Logan is considered to be a mutant, because he can use bones in his hand to create claws and use them as weapons. Similarly, his brother can grow his nails into long sharp lethal weapons. The film has a historical feel  in the sense that it refers to the major wars that the United States fought throughout history. After serving together in many of the wars, the brothers are recruited by William Stryker to serve in a special unit made up of mutants.

Stryker orders many cruel missions that show no mercy. When he orders the destruction of a village that refuses to reveal the location of a “precious metal” Stryker yearns for, Logan quits the unit and goes off to live a life of peace and isolation as a lumberjack in the Canadian Rockies. He resides in a cabin, high in the gorgeous mountains, with his girlfriend who helps calm him from the nightmares of the past. Six years pass before Stryker shows up and asks Logan to come back into the fold as part of a new Weapon X project. Logan refuses, but his brother, Creed, shows up and murders Logan's girlfriend, leaving him wanting revenge against his brother. Enraged, Logan goes on a rampage, searching for his brother and ends up accepting Stryker’s offer. Logan is then brought into a facility where his “bone” claws are replaced with adamantium, which makes him almost invincible. After hearing that Stryker’s true plan was to erase his memory and make him a weapon for the facility, Logan, aka Wolverine, breaks out. From here, Wolverine is faced with many troubles in trying to defeat his brother, Creed, (also known as Sabretooth) and continues to stumble from past memories. In the end, the story twists and Logan ends up waking up in a nuclear facility with nothing but rubble and dust clouds surrounding him.

The movie was interesting, yet some concepts of the plot were hard to follow. It was the type of movie that could not be followed unless you knew what the X-men trilogy was about. X-men fans would definitely understand and enjoy every scene of the film. The movie was fairly long, yet because of many action packed scenes, it made it worthwhile. The movie’s historical references to wars made it seem all too realistic. However, the movie was a little confusing at times, containing many bizarre scenes. One of many awesome scenes in the movie was when Logan’s claws are upgraded to the invincible metal. This makes attacking even more nifty and amusing to see! Even for people who aren’t X-men fans, the movie overall was considerably entertaining. The movie will make viewers want to grow some claws of their own.
(4 stars out of 5)