Though nowhere near as good as the first-rate first X-Men flick, the comparatively operatic Wolverine still succeeds as solid action entertainment thanks to some suitably brawny set pieces and star Hugh Jackman’s robust reprisal of the title role.

A prequel pic, it explains how the mutton-chopped speed-healer’s involvement with his like-powered brother (Liev Schreiber) and one Colonel Stryker (Danny Huston here; Brian Cox in X-Men 2) in creating the ultimate mutant weapon made him into the metal-clawed mutant we know today.

What’s missing here is the intelligence and directorial finesse of the first two installments, not to mention the free-for-all fun of the third, and to compensate director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) amps up everything–themes, emotions, explosions, Jackman’s muscles–to grandiose proportions. You’d think it all would move faster, too, but it actually kind of lumbers along.

I’ve also heard about complaints that the film disregards its predecessors. I don’t think that’s exactly true, and we’re even treated to the youthful appearance of a couple of familiar characters we get to know later on. I will, however, gripe a little about why anything that happens here matters in the least, since the title character ultimately remembers none of it.

Nonetheless, Jackman still owns the part, imbuing it with the same sort of macho man bravado and muscularity that continues to make the character the best reason to watch any of these movies. In playing the sibling who prefers to kill first and ask questions later, the talented Schreiber (Defiance) nearly matches Jackman in the bitter anger department, and so their face-offs carry a bit of weight.

They’re certainly more interesting than the supporting cast, including Huston’s bland military man villain and the various mutants played by Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan (TV’s Lost) and Taylor Kitsch (TV’s Friday Night Lights). Lynn Collins, as Jackman’s love interest, and Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am, as a mutant who can teleport, are notable exceptions.

But I did enjoy watching the mutants use their abilities. One guy’s a blazingly fast quick-draw, Reynolds can twirl swords like propellers and another guy merely sticks his fist in the business end of a tank as it fires and the thing blows up. The only downside is that we really only get to see them use their powers during big displays of action and not in smaller, throw-away moments like in the first film.

No matter, because the action stuff here really rocks. Watch Jackman tear out of a barn on a motorcycle just as the building gets obliterated, and then get chased by a helicopter before acquiring a pursuing Humvee whose subsequent destruction, in the film’s coolest shot, catapults him up and on to said chopper, which he then takes down. A little later he strolls away from it as it erupts into a fireball.

Topping that is Jackman and Schreiber’s climactic showdown with said mutant weapon on top of a cooling tower at Three Mile Island. It’s a visually fun, super-duper scuffle in which the camera swirls around the heroes as they battle the multi-powered humanoid and the tower ends up demolished.

In the end I guess I wish screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods had injected more humor into the thing, a scene in which Jackman slices a bathroom sink in half notwithstanding, and a British sage รก la Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan would have helped balance out all the brooding. But the film is what it is–a $150 million infomercial about the many uses of indestructible metal claws. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Thriller

PG-13

DVD Release Date: 9/15/09

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