Yay, the summer movie season is here with its proverbial geek-gasm of offerings from enterprises to terminators to transformers to angels and demons. Unfortunately, the excitement that began Friday was tempered after the lights rose and the curtain fell on X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In what should have been the spin-off with the greatest potential for stand-alone franchise status ends up getting buried under the weight of its own good intentions. Further, in what’s billed as a stand alone movie showcasing Hugh Jackman as the mutant fury with steel claws is reposition as basically the Destroy all Monsters of X-Men films.

Basically, it seems that anyone that couldn’t be sandwiched into the previous three X-Men films was put to the forefront here whether they fit or not. The result is either well done (Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool) or handled clumsily (like the appearances of Gambit and Emma Frost). Frustratingly, the pedigree was there to really make this thing sing, and putting Live Schrieber in the claws of Sabretooth gave just the right gravitas to the character to make him a true threat, both physically and psychologically, for Wolverine. Jackson, of course, knows this character inside and out, and when he’s allowed to be Wolverine he doesn’t fail to deliver.

And for a film with “Origins” in the title, there seems to be no indication that the filmmakers seem to care to know what makes Wolverine “the best at what he does.” It’s just easier to jettison character development and true discovery in favour of another kick ass action sequence, which truthfully I don’t think were really all that great. Although they try, the Wolverine/Sabretooth dynamic seems to boil down to “let’s fight”/“them’s fightin’ words” whenever the two of them find themselves in the same room. Similarly I found that other characters had highlights of possibility, from Will I Am’s Kenobi-esque John Wraith and Reynold’s Merc with the Mouth. (When he has a mouth that is. Don’t ask.)

Comically speaking, and I mean the books not jokes, the script crams the 6-issue Origin miniseries into about three minutes at the top of the show. Then we get this really beautifully-made montage of the various battlefields Wolverine and Sabretooth fought across for over a hundred years. That was good stuff, in fact even the scenes post the introduction of William Stryker (played here by Danny Huston) and his mutant mercenary team are pretty good. But when Wolverine walks away and settles for the quiet life of an Alberta lumberjack with Silver Fox (Lynn Collins), the film seems to loose its mind with all the talking about feelings and such. Naturally, Silver Fox is removed rather quickly.

But hey, we get Gambit finally in what’s pretty much an extended cameo practically shoe-horned into an already dense script. Now I’ve never watched Friday Night Lights, but I certainly hope that whatever affectation Taylor Kitsch puts on in that show is better than his New Orleans accent here. Kevin Durand as the Blob is also kind of shafted, being simply a name to fill a spot on the roster; he gets maybe two scenes. And as you may have guess from the trailer, Young Cyclops (Tim Pocock) is somehow, inexplicably, part of Stryker’s plan to create a composite mutant with many powers. (Strange though that he didn’t remember this experience when all that stuff went down in X2.) He never sees Wolverine of course, a blinder meant to stop his eye phasers being the cause, but the whole thing had the stink of C-3PO’s mind being conveniently erased in Revenge of the Sith.

A startling lack of cohesion is at work here. In mistaking petty details for savvy script-writing, the filmmakers overcompensate for their lack of vision with bloated action and supposed Easter Eggs for the fans who’ll see right through them as pandering, Wolverine’s solo exploits in the comics are rarely epic, but much more personal involving either a mystery about his forgotten past or some kind of vendetta mission; trying to make this just another X-Men story was a miscalculation. Wolverine should have gone the Iron Man route: small cast with a focus on character before action set pieces. Prequels are tough, following on the heels of a successful series is tough, but this effort, if you’re a fan of either Bryan Singer’s movies or the comic books they’re based on, will not leave you wanting more.