"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Adaptation. Rated PG-13.

"You sure you're on the right side?"

Everything that has an end has an beginning, as Hugh Jackman sharpens his claws once more in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which has become the #1 movie in America with $87 million. The prequel to the billion-dollar Marvel mutant superhero trilogy, it reveals the brooding anti-hero's past, which turns out to span over 150 years. The movie starts with Wolverine as James Howlett, young son to plantation owners in 19th century Canada, where signs of his mutation first starts to show. After accidentally murdering his biological father, he runs away with half-brother Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber), aka Sabretooth, and the two became inseparable since.

They've fought together in every war we could think of: the Civil War, World War I, Vietnam, and even surviving a firing squad. Both James and Victor were approached Col. William Stryker (Danny Huston), who is putting together an unit with "special privileges"; that unit was Team X, a black ops team for the CIA, which included mercenary Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Agent Zero. But James decided he had enough and walk away. Six years later, he lives a quiet life in Canada, where he settles down with schoolteacher Kayla Silver Fox (Lynn Collins), yet his past caught up with him when Victor started to kill members of Team X, and murdered his sibling's love. Stryker offers James the opportunity for revenge, and he accepts to part of Weapon X, a shadowy government project responsible for giving his adamantium skeleton, and Wolverine was born. Yet when he discovered the purpose of capturing mutants for experiments in hopes of increasing their abilities and mutating baseline humans, Wolverine lashes out against against Victor and Stryker -- literally. With the help of others such as suave Remy Labeau/Gambit (Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch), Wolverine is now out for blood, and this time there is no law and no code of conduct; only revenge.

The film's success could pave the way for several X-Men spinoffs centering on Deadpool and Gambit as well as speculation and talks from director Gavin Hood and Jackman, also one of the producers, of another Wolverine movie set to take place in Japan.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an eXcellent way to start off the summer blockbuster season of 2009: loaded with breathtaking action and filled with our favorite X-Men characters such as future Cyclops Scott Summers and Emma Frost (Tahyna Tozzi). Whether or not you're a fan of X-Men and Wolverine, this is truly a film worth seeing more than once, as the highlight of the film is the intense rivalry between Wolverine and Sabretooth: two sides of the same coin, for they are equal yet opposite. Still, this film is the opportunity to explore the emotional and mental psyche of the troubled Marvel Dark Knight known as Wolverine: always at war not only with the world, but also with the beast within himself. Wolverine could be considered as the "Man with No Name" of the X-Men: mysterious, strong, silent, deadly, rebellious, anti-authority, man of action but has a sense of honor, loyalty, and ehtics, and a heart for others in need - as long as they don't get on his bad side.

Everything that all of us feared and don't understand becomes the one thing that will save us, with X-Men Origins: Wolverine in theatres now.