If "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" suggests anything, it's that living, breathing people in big-budget mainstream movies are rapidly becoming obsolete. Hugh Jackman may be the contractual star of this Marvel Comics-inspired production, which explores (creates) the history of one of Marvel's most popular and conflicted heroes, but technology is what makes the movie what it is, a film with the personality of a $150 million video game.

The story starts in 1845, in darkest Canada, where young brothers James and Victor see the man they think is their father gunned down. Before the intruder can spit out what he has come to tell them, he gets skewered on the irate James's nascent bone claws.

Throughout history, James (Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) kick major enemy butt together. Victor/Sabretooth is always the more sadistic of the two. He's one twisted, unkillable dude, actually, and James, a.k.a. Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, constantly has to rein him in. But you can see where this is going: conflict. It's always the same: Guys have superpowers. You think they'd be happy. But no. All the time, conflict.

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. Cartoons, however, are rarely so unwieldy or force a director (in this case, Gavin Hood) to juggle so much impossible plotline.

Victor and James are recruited by the mysterious William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join a Dirty Dozen-style team of -- what are they, super-mercenaries? Don't know. Nor do we know why, once the group breaks up, Victor starts killing its old members. Or why he kills Wolverine's girlfriend.

It all comes out eventually. But a character's motivation is a lot less effective dramatically when it's delivered at the tail end of the movie.

-- John Anderson (May 1, 2009)

Contains violence, intense action and fleeting nudity.