A little late on this one (Which I’m assuming accounts entirely for it’s disappointing opening weekend), but frankly, it was a bank holiday and I couldn’t be arsed to report on lack lustre budget sequels until now. Anyway, despite his rep for drama, Director Gavin Hood handles this pretty well, shooting lean action that often has a slightly 80s retro feel to it while avoiding the slide into MTV cutting that so often dooms these things. Fights have a raw and visceral feel to them, and while they may make for an exposition-heavy first half, the historical battle sequences manage to feel like they might have actual consequences for the characters-be they physical or mental.

Likewise, the badly grafted on sequence with ‘Kayla’, taken from the similarly mis-handled ‘Origins’ comic book, slows things down to a crawl, and we have to wait for the stuffed second half before things start to pick up, mainly because scenes are drawn from the infinitely superior ‘Weapon-X’ storyline. Danny Huston shows conviction as a young William Stryker, he’s well cast, grounding the movie and managing to add to Brian Cox’s portrayal and flesh the character out. Meanwhile Jackman really shines here, and not just because he’s obviously been pumping iron non-stop for the last 6 months. The trademark dry humour is sadly absent, but the rest of the characterisation is well handled, giving us a believable story that explains why the hell someone would have their memories ripped out on purpose.

Liev Schreiber is a solid foe as Sabretooth, obviously having fun with the role but not sliding into parody, and doing much better for it than Ryan Reynolds, who somehow manages to Merc with a Mouth Deadpool uninteresting.

Basically this is ‘First Blood’ updated for the Dark Knight generation, and while it’s a solid effort, making better use of source material than ‘The Last Stand’, the whole thing never rises to ‘X2′ levels, and ultimately will never be more than a throwaway popcorn movie.

Not the best there is at what it does-wait for the DVD.