Entertainment, Movies - Army Times

A cut above

Show of hands: Who wouldn’t like to have retractable, razor-sharp, indestructible claws, instant healing powers that make you virtually invulnerable to injury, and really cool sideburns?

Anyone? No?

Well, there it is: The sum total of the explanation for why “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” will rake in the first big pot of the summer movie season. And it hardly hurts that Hugh Jackman, buffed to perfection for the title role, represents one of the best matches of actor and comic-book character ever to appear on the big screen.

Early warning for purists: This “origin” story has absolutely nothing to do with the acclaimed six-part Wolverine “origin” comic book issued by Marvel Comics in 2001-02.

Here, Jimmy Logan (Jackman) and older half-brother Victor (Liev Schreiber), born in 1840s Canada, learn early in childhood that they’re “mutants” endowed with superhuman animalistic abilities — and urges.

They grow to manhood but then stop aging (don’t ask, it’s never explained). In what is arguably the film’s most visually creative sequence, they’re shown sating their blood lust by signing up together to serve in every conflict that comes along — the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam. (The sight of Victor leaping up the cliffs of Normandy and yanking German troops out of their bunkers like they were rag dolls is a hoot.)

It’s in Vietnam that the boys come to the attention of the shadowy Col. Stryker (Danny Huston), who convinces them to become part of a team of similarly enhanced beings.

Through some dizzying twists, turns and double-crosses, it’s eventually revealed that Stryker is using Victor, now known as “Sabretooth,” to kidnap other child mutants and whisk them away to a top-secret lab.

Stryker’s endgame is to tap the DNA of all these mutants and synthesize their disparate abilities in one all-powerful but compliant “Weapon XI” — who can then be unleashed by the U.S. government to wipe out the growing national security threat posed by the proliferating mutants.

The dialogue is on the wan side, nothing more memorable than Victor’s crack when Jimmy first flashes his enhanced adamantium claws — “Ooh, shiny” — a line already neutered through endless repetition in the film’s ubiquitous trailer.

And, as is usually the case in such flicks, plot contrivances abound. One involves the mutant Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), who is supposedly the only person ever to escape Stryker’s island prison — and, as such, the only one who can lead Jimmy to the island.

Jimmy finds Gambit with ridiculous ease, raising the question of why Stryker himself hasn’t tried to recapture or kill the boy. But how to get to the island? Why, Gambit owns a single-engine plane. Of course he does!

The “island” is Pennsylvania’s infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Of course it is! Where better to hide a top-secret experimental mutant lab?

Still, there’s plenty to savor. Colorful (sometimes literally) characters abound. An uncredited special guest star appears in the final scene. And Jackman brings quite a bit of depth to his role as the conflicted Wolverine (who has always been my pick for the most substantive and interesting of the crowded field of X-Men).

Most important, the action is first-rate, including several Wolverine-Sabretooth throw-downs, an eye-popping fight atop a Three Mile Island cooling tower and a standout sequence pitting a helicopter gunship and two armed Humvees against Wolverine on a vintage motorcyle.

Guess who wins.

In the end, it’s silly to be too harsh on these kinds of flicks. We don’t go to them expecting things like consistent plot logic and killer dialogue. We go for the chance to dive head-first into a big, loud, flashy, vibrant, 30-foot-high, 50-foot-wide, live-action comic book.

That simple fact makes “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” a fine, fitting start to the mindless summer movie season.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Got a rant or rave about the movies? E-mail cvinch@atpco.com.