X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: May 1, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
19
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Wolverine is a solid start to the ever-lengthening summer movie season, when all that matters is the bang and the bucks paid for it. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Although it's a quintessential popcorn movie, Wolverine is not mindless. Hood and Jackman bring depth to a comic-book tale of anti-heroes with anger issues. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
There's no shortage of "wow" moments, but the strong liberal political subtext of the trilogy has largely disappeared. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
How does all this play out for those of us – i.e., me – who have not been staying up nights fretting over the origins of the X-Men and Women? The answer is: Fairly well. Read full review
67
Film.comLaremy Legel
You won’t be upset you saw it, you’ll have some fun, you’ll see Wolvie beat the living hell out of a helicopter. These are good things, and it’s why studios are provided huge budgets to play with in the first place. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Jackman's charisma breathes the fire into Wolverine, not the rather pedestrian script or the by-the-numbers action. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger Moore
A perfectly adequate superhero comic-book movie, all explosions, chases, gunfights, sword fights and blood feuds. There’s even a little humor in it. Read full review
63
ObserverSara Vilkomerson
There is no way I would call this a good movie. But! I was indeed entertained the whole way through, and there were enough genuinely interesting scenes to almost make up for the incredibly clunky moments provided by a very wooden screenplay. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Although the action scenes are competently executed, there's nothing here to raise the pulse. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
So does the film succeed, overall? On some levels. But if all you want is a guilt-free, sci-fi summer pleasure, save your money and wait another week. The crew of the Enterprise is on its way. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
It's a solid, efficient comic book movie that is content to provide comic book satisfactions of the action and violence variety. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
A mix of solid action and an underused cast, with star Hugh Jackman left shouldering the burden of bad lines and forced emotion, it leaves you longing for more editing and a tighter story. Read full review
60
Total FilmJonathan Dean
Origins is an accomplished slice of comic-book entertainment, full of fights and action set-pieces impressive for a director touching big budget for the first time. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The effect-laden showdowns feel more dutiful than daring, and the rare moments of fun are parceled out frugally, like precious nuggets of adamantium. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
The clichéd script doesn't develop the secondary characters or the critical theme of the mutants' alienation. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's all a jumble and, worse, a damned impersonal one. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A chaotic headbanger, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is saved from pure flat-footed blockbuster franchise adequacy by six things, three of them on Hugh Jackman's left hand, three on his right. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
"Wolverine" feels enslaved to its many masters - Marvel Comics, Hollywood, and the young men who devour their products - never sidestepping the déjà vu it inspires. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Nothing here about human nature. No personalities beyond those hauled in via typecasting. No lessons to learn. No joy to be experienced. Just mayhem, noise and pretty pictures. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
The action scenes and plot points frequently defy logic, the apparent assumption being that it's just comic-book stuff and doesn't really need to make sense. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an O.K., not great, Marvel movie...Wolverine doesn't rise above the level of familiar competence. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
There's little of the seen-it-all, wise-guy acerbity that made his character in the X-Men trilogy stand apart from his fellow mutants. Here, he just glowers. Read full review
49
NPRBob Mondello
The most terrifying thing about the movie, really, is that plural: Originsssss. So many mutants, so much time. Thank God we can leave that for another summer. Read full review
40
The TelegraphSukhdev Sandhu
A compromise, a ghastly hybrid, a film that appears to have pirated and wrecked its own potential. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
X-Men Origins: Wolverine will most likely manage to cash in on the popularity of the earlier episodes, but it is the latest evidence that the superhero movie is suffering from serious imaginative fatigue. Read full review
40
EmpireNick de Semlyen
Can everyone stop making moody origin stories now, please? While not a disaster, this isn’t the claws-out, rampaging adventure we hoped for. No-one cares where Wolverine found his jacket — a spin-off with him kicking ass in Japan would have been way more fun. Read full review
40
Time Out LondonTom Huddleston
With some dire blue-screen effects, dizzying tonal instability and a total absence of suspense or originality, "Wolverine" is something of a disaster. Read full review
40
The GuardianAndrew Pulver
The furrowed-brow seriousness of X-Men is its least attractive quality, but that is the mood that dominates in this film. It's hard to see how anyone other than hardcore fans will find much to entertain them. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineNick Schager
The action is perfunctory and forgettable, albeit no more so than the script's range of clichés. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The problem with “Wolverine” isn’t that the mythology is detailed and potentially confusing — you could say that about any number of movies based on comic books, even some of the good ones. The bigger issue is that “Wolverine” is so uninvolving that you might not care whether you remember what happened 10 minutes ago. Read full review
30
Washington PostJohn Anderson
"Wolverine" is full of angst, and yet has had virtually all the soul wrung out of it in an effort to create a live-action cartoon. But cartoons are rarely so unwieldy, or force a director -- in this case, the largely unsung Gavin Hood -- to juggle so much impossible plotline. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Wolverine is a noisy mess, an origin/prequel that's nicely full of Jackman's ace glare as Wolverine and seriously killer snarl – The Boy From Aaarrrgh! – but utterly devoid of any of the borderline subversive smarts that made Bryan Singer's "X-Men" outings so contemporarily resonant. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Credit the director for one thing. He could have stretched it to three hours, but he gets in and out of this mess in less than two. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story’s mounting ludicrousness—two words: adamantium bullets—or a conclusion that’s only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown. Maybe. Read full review
20
SlateDana Stevens
Even by the standard of a fourth-in-a-series summer blockbuster, Wolverine, the first X-Men movie directed by Gavin Hood ( Rendition), is remarkably lame. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The movie drills itself into our skulls, which are all too vulnerable to such an assault, though I must say my brain glazed over and my heart turned adamantine while the stupidities of this action thriller played themselves out. Read full review
20
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
The X-Men franchise takes a giant leap backward and off a cliff with its fourth offering. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
"Wolverine" is silly and typical, not in spite of but because it bonds an undeveloped family feud onto the main character's renegade story. Read full review
20
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The story, devised by David Benioff and Skip Woods, is largely meaningless, and the emotions are no more than functional—they set up the next fight. Read full review
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