Taking awful to the next level

Despite its title, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” clarifies little about its title character.

The film opens in a 19th-century Canadian cabin as James Logan, eventually Wolverine, copes with an undisclosed but seemingly important illness. The father of Logan’s friend Victor Creed shows up yelling for Logan’s mother Elizabeth. Soon enough, Logan’s father is killed by Victor’s father and Logan extends his claws for the first time to do in Victor’s dad.

But wait. Before Victor’s father dies he reveals himself to be Logan’s father.  Logan and Creed, realizing they are brothers run off and fight in a string of conflicts from the American Civil War to Vietnam. Apparently they never age, and Creed is actually a young Sabretooth.  What the initial family drama has to do with either Creed or Logan’s powers is never explained and neither is the illness. We don’t really find out why the whimpy kid in the initial scene felt compelled to fight in World War I either.
“X-Men Origins” doesn’t scrape up more of a plot than it needs to to string together an endless parade of action scenes.

Unfortunately, every single action sequence is awful. 

The film continues the task “X3: The Last Stand” started: destroying the credibility of the entire franchise.

If you saw this film after viewing the trailer, I can only assume you did it as a joke.
 You probably weren’t disappointed by Wolverine flying through the air to take down a helicopter, the obnoxious ability of every character to jump at least 30 feet high or the abysmal love story that develops between Wolverine and a Canadian school teacher.

But if you can’t laugh at the film’s sheer awfulness, Wolverine’s quest for revenge against Sabretooth and Col. William Stryker, the man who tricked Wolverine into fusing his bones with super-tough adamantium, has few redeeming qualities.