(Fairly brief) "Wolverine" review (spoilers!)

Just got back a little while ago (yesterday now, by the time I'm getting this post up) from seeing "Wolverine" (hope you don't me not using the unnecessarily long "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") and without going into an in-depth review, I'd like to add a few thoughts for your more in-the-know [Marvel] comics fan.

First, I'd give the movie a "B-," meaning it was simply good. The action is great as are the F/X, but the backstory is skimpy enough and has enough "WTFs" in it that it prevents anything more. The beginning is well done in that it, a la "Watchmen," shows in flashbacks Wolverine ("James" or "Jimmy," as brother Sabretooth calls him, as in James Howlett from "Origin") and Sabretooth from their beginnings as young boys (in the mid-1800s!!) through the 1970s. Wolvie and 'Tooth take part in every major conflict from the American Civil War through Vietnam. During 'Nam, William Stryker (from "X-Men 2" infamy) pops up to recruit the mutant brothers to his special task force. Wolvie doesn't much like the killing that goes on, so he ups and leaves after a few missions.

Ha.

Stryker and the force keep tabs on him during Wolvie's "normal" life as a lumberjack(!), eventually "inducing" him to come back through deception.

Here are some of the more notable "WTF" moments, big and small. Or, as my teaching colleague, good friend and comics aficionado Brent would say, "COME ON!! moments":

• Stryker and the doctors of the Weapon X program went to great pains to make sure Wolverine knew he'd be in utter agony during the Adamantium bonding process. Yet, the procedure didn't convey that agony to the degree you'd expect. I was expecting Jackman to be thrashing about uncontrollably and look like a guy on the verge of madness. Nothing even close to that was shown. COME ON!!
• My pal Brent caught this one: As Agent Zero and other Stryker hitmen are attempting to off Wolverine, Logan is finally victorious after smashing the helicopter they're all on. He crashes with the copter, and rolls several hundred feet along a gravel road. (Obviously, his new Adamantium bones and healing factor save him.) But -- his new leather coat appears brand-spankin' new in the very next scene ... after it should'a been torn to shreds from the recent battle!! COME ON!!
• How'd Wolverine lose his memory of all this? The movie "covers" this angle -- by having Stryker shoot two Adamantium bullets into Logan's skull! (A doctor informs Stryker that "his brain will heal," but Stryker then says "his memories won't.") OK, I'll buy that ... but Logan's healing powers won't close up two holes in his Adamantium skull!! He'd be walking around forever with these two bullet holes! Why didn't Jean Grey detect these in "X-Men" when she was checking Logan out in the medical lab? COME ON!!
• Stryker's lab was located at ... Three Mile Island? (Gambit implies to Logan that "that'd be the last place you'd expect to find such a facility" -- Stryker's -- so ...) But Gambit and Logan fly right over the place in a Cesna! Like, it's a nuclear power plant!! Even back in the 1970s (where the bulk of the movie occurs) there were regulations (and protections) about such actions due to terrorism/infiltration concerns. Yet there's Gambit and Logan flying right in ... COME ON!!
• Unless I missed something, Emma Frost -- whose skin can turn into diamond -- was housed in a ... steel cage?? She couldn't break out of that?? COME ON!! (By the way, when did she get such powers? I know this was established in the comics, but when did she move from a mentalist to diamond-hard skin?)
• How come Sabretooth didn't recognize Wolverine in "X-Men"?? Sure, Logan's memories are shot, but 'Tooth's?? COME ON!!

Liev Schreiber ("The Manchurian Candidate"), who plays Sabretooth, is by far the best of the cast. His lust for blood and killing are aptly portrayed. And the chick who plays Logan's squeeze (Lynn Collins)? YOWSAH!!