X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens in 1845 in the Northwest Territories, where a boy named James Howlett watches groundskeeper Thomas Logan murder his father. The killing triggers James’ mutation — bone claws push out of his knuckles — and he impales Thomas, who dies admitting he is James’ biological father. James runs off with Thomas’ other son, Victor Creed, his elder half-brother, who has claw nails and a healing factor of his own.
That is a strong first scene. It is also close to the last time the film knows what it wants.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios.
Hugh Jackman and the 2008 Shoot in Australia
Gavin Hood directed X-Men Origins: Wolverine from a script by David Benioff and Skip Woods. It runs 107 minutes and was mostly shot in Australia and New Zealand, with Canada also serving as a location. Filming ran from January to May 2008.
The production was troubled. Weather and Jackman’s other commitments caused delays. The screenplay was still being written in Los Angeles while principal photography rolled in Australia. Hood and Fox executives fought over the film’s direction. A month before release, an unfinished workprint leaked online.
Jackman, who also produced through his company Seed Productions and earned $25 million, trained hard for the part. He said no digital touches were applied to his physique in the shot of him rising from the tank where Wolverine’s bones are infused with adamantium. That shot is the film’s best.
Team X, Kayla Silverfox and the Adamantium Tank
The plot spans more than a century. James and Victor fight in the American Civil War, both World Wars and Vietnam. In Vietnam, Victor tries to rape a Vietnamese woman and kills a senior officer who intervenes. Both men face a firing squad and survive it.
Major William Stryker then recruits them for Team X, alongside marksman Agent Zero, mercenary Wade Wilson, teleporter John Wraith, the strong and invulnerable Fred Dukes, and technopath Chris Bradley. James takes the alias Logan. He leaves when Victor and half the team show no control and no empathy.
By 1985 Logan is a logger in Canada, living with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox. Stryker and Zero tell him Wade and Bradley have been killed. Logan refuses to rejoin. Then he finds Kayla’s bloodied body in the woods and blames Victor. He loses the bar fight that follows. Stryker offers him the Weapon X operation — adamantium bonded to his skeleton — and Logan takes it to get his revenge.
“Witness the origin.”
That tagline is doing a lot of work for a film that treats its own origin story as an errand.
Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds and a Cast Doing Two Jobs
Liev Schreiber plays Victor, who becomes Sabretooth. Jackman and Hood compared the brothers to the Borg–McEnroe rivalry: enemies who cannot live without each other. Schreiber put on 40 lb (18 kg) of muscle. Jackman had worked with him before, on the 2001 romantic comedy Kate & Leopold, and said he had the competitive streak the role needed. The two egged each other on set to perform more stunts.
Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson. Danny Huston plays Stryker. Dominic Monaghan plays Bradley. will.i.am plays John Wraith. Taylor Kitsch plays Remy LeBeau. Troye Sivan plays young James, cast after casting directors saw him sing at the Channel Seven Perth Telethon. Kodi Smit-McPhee was originally cast in that role but left to film The Road.
Here is the running order of the film’s century, as the plot lays it out:
| Year | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1845 | Thomas Logan kills James’ father; James’ claws emerge; James and Victor flee |
| 1861–1975 | The brothers fight in the Civil War, both World Wars and Vietnam |
| Vietnam | Victor attempts to rape a Vietnamese woman and kills a senior officer who tries to stop him; the pair survive a firing squad |
| After Vietnam | Stryker recruits them for Team X; Logan walks away |
| 1985 | Logan finds Kayla’s bloodied body in the woods and blames Victor; Logan takes the adamantium |
Where X-Men Origins: Wolverine Goes Wrong
The film has one idea and it is a good one: Logan and Victor are two sides of the same coin, and Victor is the pure animal, the part of Logan he hates. Schreiber plays that. Jackman plays the other half. When they share a scene, the film has a pulse.
Everything around them is scaffolding. Team X is a roster, not a unit. Stryker is a recruiter with a plan and no pressure behind it. Kayla exists to be found bloodied in the woods so Logan has a reason to climb into the tank. The film keeps reaching for the next beat of the origin instead of sitting inside any of them.
The leaked workprint explains more than it should. A film still being written while it shoots will show its seams, and this one does — in the half-built Team X missions, in the abrupt jump from Vietnam to a Canadian logging camp, in a revenge plot that arrives fully formed because the script needed it to.
It opened at the top of the North American box office and grossed $179 million in the United States and Canada and $373 million worldwide. That is a real number and it says nothing about whether the film works.
The adamantium sequence is the exception. The tank, the claws, the shot Jackman insisted was untouched — that is the movie the tagline promised. It lasts a few minutes.
The rest is a prequel that treats its own past as a checklist. It is the fourth film in the series and the first Wolverine solo outing, and it plays like a franchise clearing ground for better ones. Schreiber and Jackman deserved a smaller, meaner film about two brothers who cannot stop. They got a tour.
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