GOOD THINGS DO NOT COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT

After literally waiting over 20 years for the origin story of the Marvel Comics second most popular character (the first being Spider Man), the title of this blog post says it all.  X-Men Origins Wolverine was a good movie, but not the great origin story that the character deserves.  It lacked in almost every way, the effects were a noticeable when they should have been undectable, the story had holes, and unfortunately, I think Wolverine suffered the same fate as Watchmen earlier this year - it's too much of an insider story.  Unlike Iron Man (which opened the same weekend last summer), the movie was perfect if you were a comic book fan and knew the history of the characters, but a poor film if you have no idea who Wolverine is.

In order for these comic book franchises to pop, they need to follow the Iron Man/Batman/Spider Man franchise movie path.  The first film is the origin story, which is always a little weak, the second film is the exciting film and the third film ruins the build upof  popular support for the other 2 films, the characters are retired for 5 years and then relaunched with a 4th film and new vision.

If you're a fan of Wolverine, the movie was a bit dissappointing, but the promise of the sequel set in Japan and going into Logan's samurai history looks rife for a great second film.  We shall see in a few years.

I did like aspects of the movie.  I like how they used the Three Mile Island meltdown in the film, and some of the mutants were cool.  The film also allowed FOX to launch the first class of mutants into an whole new film.

As an even sadder footnote, again, after waiting 20 years to find out Wolverine's real name, I order a Papa John's pizza three weeks before the movie opens, and due to a promotional tie in, Wolverine's real name is on the outside of the pizza box!  So that's how I found out his real name.  Sad, isn't it?  But then I remembered, one of the last comics I ever bought was the 6 issue Wolverine Origins story.  I read it, and the movie was much better than the comic origins story.  The comic should have been 2 or max. 3 issues, not 6.  Talk about streching out a story longer than it needed to be.