Catalyst Castle

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prequel to the X-Men movie trilogy explaining the origins of the character known as Logan or Wolverine. The majority of the story takes place 10-20 years before the events of the first X-Men film. The movie explains the relationship between Logan and Sabretooth, shows Logan’s involvement with Colonel Stryker and the Weapon X program, and reveals how Logan lost his memories. One minor detail I enjoyed was an explanation for why Logan adopted the name Wolverine.

I went into the movie expecting a lot of action and only enough story to link the various action scenes together. I was pleasantly surprised that the movie had a fairly good plot with a couple of twists and surprises throughout. The writing and acting was pretty good, and the casting was well done. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, and his portrayal of the character was spot on. While the movie featured a number of new characters, for me the most memorable was Wade Wilson portrayed by Ryan Reynolds. The only character I was somewhat disappointed with was Gambit. In the film he didn’t have enough of a Cajun accent to do the character justice.

My biggest complaint against the film is the special effects. Some of the effects were so obviously fake it was distracting. The most notable example I recall is when Sabretooth drags his claws along the hood of a truck and rends the metal as he goes. The tears in the metal were very obviously drawn in.

Overall, the movie delivered exactly what I expected and a little bit more. I’d say it was about on par with X2 in pretty much all respects. I wouldn’t mind seeing the sequel or the Deadpool spin-off, both of which have already been confirmed as in-production.


Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here’s an idea from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Playing an Origin Story: When playing a long running RPG campaign, it could be fun to take a session or two to explore each character’s origins. This would especially be true in playing a superhero RPG, but it could really work in any RPG that brings a number of characters with very different and involved backgrounds together. I think you would want to play a few sessions first in the setting’s “present”, but then periodically play a session as sort of a “flashback”. During such origin stories, the other players could take on the roles of new characters that are important to the featured character’s background. It could be an opportunity for character development and a chance for everyone to try something a little different.