With the beginning of summer blockbuster season, the word expectation gets thrown around a lot.’ X-Men Origins: Wolverine satisfies expectations as a shallow action movie which distracts from its weaknesses with all the traditional clich’eacute;s. Hugh Jackman plays a competent Wolverine, though despite being the title character, his development is mostly relegated to yelling and grimacing.’ Liev Schreiber is more impressive as Sabretooth, drifting from slightly unhinged brother to violent maniac.’ The love interest is played by Lynn Collins, who fills the part and does little else.’ Ryan Reynolds has at most three lines in the entire movie, ignoring the potential of the character.’ The rest of the actors exist as vehicles to move the film from one action sequence to the next. These sequences and the clich’eacute;s that come with them are what make the movie palatable.’ Jackman tears through soldiers, mutants, humvees and helicopters, usually on weak pretenses, and that’s what makes this enjoyable.’ One scene is even ended with Logan walking away from an ignited gas trail leading to an explosion.’ This could be treated as an unforgivable rehash of countless other films, but in the indulgent tradition of poorly written comic book flicks, its much more satisfying to relish the attitude.’ The only thing that would make the scene better is if Jackman turned back and donned sunglasses, possibly lighting a cigarette on the explosion.’ That might seem obscene, but Origins actually surpasses that when Logan rides a wheelie on a motorcycle out of building just exploded by a missile. Not every action scene is as indulgent with generic conventions.’ A fight scene on the top of a nuclear cooling tower has some innovative and awe inspiring visuals.’ Yet in some scenes the CGI effects are crude and seem a decade behind the times.’ A scene in which Jackman inspects his newly acquired metal claws has especially poor effects, and wasn’t funny enough to make the final cut regardless. X-Men Origins: Wolverine isn’t the worst comic book movie, but it comes nowhere near the first two X-men titles or last year’s Iron Man.’ A mediocre popcorn flick, the movie will sit well with the Rambo crowd, but anybody looking for something deeper will be disappointed.’ Comic book fans as well may find the liberties taken with the characters offensive. Grade: C+ ‘