Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
43
(36 sources)
43
(36 sources)
-
75
New York Post
Fortunately, Jackman is well-matched with Schreiber, who can sneer with the best of them and wears fangs well. The two have three spectacular battles together before squaring off against a formidable enemy atop a nuclear reactor. Read Full Review » -
75
USA Today
Although it's a quintessential popcorn movie, Wolverine is not mindless. Hood and Jackman bring depth to a comic-book tale of anti-heroes with anger issues. Read Full Review » -
75
Christian Science Monitor
Hugh Jackman demonstrates that you can segue effortlessly from a tuxedoed song-and-dance man at the Oscars to a feral gent with adamantium claws and "berserker rage." Read Full Review » -
63
Baltimore Sun
Jackman has a wily, crowd-pleasing knack for playing Wolverine as if he were a more emotive and even more snarly Clint Eastwood. Read Full Review » -
63
Premiere
Things explode, jerks get stabbed and all the boxes on the action-movie honey-do list get checks. Read Full Review » -
63
ReelViews
When it comes to superhero tales, the two least appealing types are origin stories and prequels. Wolverine has the double disadvantage of being both. Read Full Review » -
63
Charlotte Observer
Ends up being a relatively sharp way to start the summer movie season. The familiarity of the story just declaws it a bit. Read Full Review » -
63
Miami Herald
Whether this journey to the past was necessary is definitely up for debate: Wolverine's history turns out to be only moderately interesting and not terribly surprising. Read Full Review » -
60
Los Angeles Times
It's a solid, efficient comic book movie that is content to provide comic book satisfactions of the action and violence variety. If it doesn't rise to the heights of Christopher Nolan's "Batman" films, it doesn't stray into "Daredevil" territory either. Read Full Review » -
58
Entertainment Weekly
The effect-laden showdowns feel more dutiful than daring, and the rare moments of fun are parceled out frugally, like precious nuggets of adamantium. Read Full Review » -
50
Variety
Noisy and impersonal, X-Men Origins: Wolverine bears all the marks of a work for hire, conceived and executed with a big budget but little imagination. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Sun-Times
It is Hugh Jackman's misfortune that when they were handing out superheroes, he got Wolverine, who is for my money low on the charisma list. He never says anything witty, insightful or very intelligent; his utterances are limited to the vocalization of primitive forces: anger, hurt, vengeance, love, hate, determination. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Tribune
A chaotic headbanger, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is saved from pure flat-footed blockbuster franchise adequacy by six things, three of them on Hugh Jackman's left hand, three on his right. Read Full Review » -
50
Boston Globe
Wolverine feels enslaved to its many masters - Marvel Comics, Hollywood, and the young men who devour their products - never sidestepping the déjà vu it inspires. Read Full Review » -
50
Philadelphia Inquirer
There's little of the seen-it-all, wise-guy acerbity that made his character in the X-Men trilogy stand apart from his fellow mutants. Here, he just glowers. Read Full Review » -
50
-
50
Washington Post
Wolverine is full of angst, and yet it has virtually all the humanity wrung out of it in an effort to create a live-action cartoon. Read Full Review » -
50
The New York Times
It is the latest evidence that the superhero movie is suffering from serious imaginative fatigue. Read Full Review » -
50
-
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Unfortunately, the talented cast is saddled with some mercilessly flat dialogue, a definite point of vulnerability for any mutant movie. Read Full Review » -
50
Portland Oregonian
Simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished and just plain sloppy. Read Full Review » -
50
TV Guide
From a non-fanboy perspective, it has some exciting action and colorful characters; unfortunately, the special effects vary from impressive to embarrassing. Read Full Review » -
50
NPR
The most terrifying thing about the movie, really, is that plural: Originsssss. So many mutants, so much time. Thank God we can leave that for another summer. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Reader
Jackman's committed performance keeps the movie on track, though Huston and Schreiber are strictly on autopilot. Read Full Review » -
50
The New Yorker
In the noisy X-Men Origins: Wolverine, two warring mutant brothers, Liev Schreiber, a morose sadist with fangs, and Hugh Jackman, unhappy but ripped, fly at each other again and again, grappling, punching, slashing. Alas, there's nothing quite memorable here: much of the combat is just a whirl of movement photographed up close. Read Full Review » -
40
Film Threat
Even the final fight, between the united brothers and the end result of Stryker's amusing attempts to combine teleportation, accelerated healing, adamantium, and optic blasts into a super mutant, is as ridiculous and half-assed as the rest of the movie. Read Full Review » -
40
Salon.com
Wolverine purports to tell us more and yet gives us less: It's so cluttered and action-packed that the action ceases to mean anything -- virtually nothing the characters do or say results in consequences that stick. Read Full Review » -
40
-
40
The Hollywood Reporter
Everything gets scarified on the altar of speed. You hardly get any chance to take the measure of any mutant, least of all Wolverine. Read Full Review » -
40
Empire
Can everyone stop making moody origin stories now, please? While not a disaster, this isn't the claws-out, rampaging adventure we hoped for. No-one cares where Wolverine found his jacket -- a spin-off with him kicking ass in Japan would have been way more fun. Read Full Review » -
30
-
30
Austin Chronicle
Wolverine is a noisy mess, an origin/prequel that's nicely full of Jackman's ace glare as Wolverine and seriously killer snarl - The Boy From Aaarrrgh! - but utterly devoid of any of the borderline subversive smarts that made Bryan Singer's "X-Men" outings so contemporarily resonant. Read Full Review » -
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Supposedly a comic book movie, and yet it violates one of the tenets of comic books: It doesn't delineate and particularize Wolverine's special powers. Read Full Review » -
25
The Onion (A.V. Club)
A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story's mounting ludicrousness--two words: adamantium bullets--or a conclusion that's only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown. Maybe. Read Full Review » -
20
-
20
Wall Street Journal
My brain glazed over and my heart turned adamantine while the stupidities of this action thriller played themselves out. Read Full Review »
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