X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Is really not that bad. It is solid entertainment, full of impressive action sequences (including one great one on Three Mile Island), loosely weaved together with the origin story to Wolverine and his brother, Sabretooth (played by Liev Schreiber, hamming it up). There is little effort made to ponder the dialectics of mutant existence, in contrast to the original movie trilogy, so instead we get a standard story of sibling rivalry, lost love, revenge, and admantium injection. It is fun to see more of the comic book mutants appear as extras, and even Xavier makes a late appearance. But nothing very complicated is being attempted in the movie, and it is a good way to ease into the summer blockbuster season.

As I was buying the ticket, the seller told me to “stay for the credits” and indeed, there is a fairly pointless 30 second scene right after the five full minutes of credits (during which I learned that what appeared to be the Canadian Rockies, were in fact mountains in New Zealand).  I wonder if this was an official message, or just an employee eager than I not miss a second of the origin story.