Part 4: Wolverine's Introduction; Bonding with Rogue; A Fight

9:22 - 20:47 (11:25)

This is the most important segment of the entire movie because this is where we meet Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, in the only role he'll ever need). If you fuck up Wolverine you don't have a movie franchise. Spoiler Alert. They don't fuck it up.The importance of this segment reflected in the length.

We cut to Canada and we're back in Rogue's POV. Her family clearly didn't take her being a scary mutant who sucks the life-force out of people. The movie mercifully skips over that. We don't need that falling out in all its gory detail; we have more mutants to meet. Inside a bar we see Wolverine in a cage fight with some poor schmuck. The metallic sound effects are another nice detail here.

Back at the bar, Rogue is enjoying some water and eyeballing the tip jar. The dick bartender moves it out of reach. You can tell they spent a lot of time getting this scene right as its full of great little moments like that. We get some exposition out of the way via a television news report while the camera focuses on Rogue and Wolverine checking each other out. Good storytelling.

The punk Wolverine beat up in the cage comes by and has a(n admantanium?) bone to pick. You know what its time for? CLAWS!

Wolverine gets to be a bad-ass but leaves the bar with out actually hurting anyone. Wolverine is back on the road and in yet another great detail he uses his superhuman hearing to deduce that there's a stowaway in his trailer. The use of mutant powers in non-combat situations goes a long way towards making this world and the characters feel real. Wolverine then goes on to ditch Rogue on the side of the road because he's an anti-social loner of course, before going back to give her a ride because really he's a big softie. It's a little obvious but its still a nice character beat and Jackman plays it well. That gruff exterior really is all pretense, isn't it?

Rogue and Wolverine have a great little conversation where they bond over being outcast freaks in constant pain. I love this line:

ROGUE: When they come out... does it hurt?
LOGAN: Every time.

 So good. What I don't get is why Rouge is actually calling herself that? It's weird that a teenage runaway would giver herself a bonkers nickname like that and the film makes no reference to this being part of mutant culture of which she's not yet part of. It's a little sloppy and Wolverine even draws attention to it by asking her about it. That was her name in the comics; just deal with it, OK? Fine!

Wolverine crashes the truck and nearly 20 minutes in we get our first hint that this isn't just a weird character drama/racial allegory and its actually a movie where freaks with superpowers fight and stuff. Wolverine vs Sabretooth (Tyler Mane) isn't much of a fight and really more of an excuse to for Cyclops(James Marsden) and Storm(Halle Berry)to make their heroic entrance and save Rouge from the truck, which by the way was about to explode!

Explosion count:1

Cyclops and Storm were in their leathery X-Men uniforms which I'll dive into during a later scene but briefly; they're OK. The weather control and eye laser effects are nicely done but not a particularly mind blowing visual. I would've hoped by this point in the movie we would have had at least one four star shot by now, but alas...