Just got back from the theater. A note on bias: I liked this movie. The guys I went with thought it was awful. For exactly the same reason that I thought Underworld was awful, and the guys I went with thought it rocked. Eye candy in the form of Hugh Jackman or Kate Beckinsale truly can compensate for terrible moviemaking.

This flick (barely) makes up for the many crimes of X-Men 3, and avoids the yeah-we-know-where-it’s-headed-already blasé that usually plagues prequels. Unlike the last flick, which was pretty much just a mutant holocaust of lame ways for powerful people to die and/or lose their powers, everybody who died at least went in a manner befitting an X-Man. The film is deservedly PG-13, with infrequent cussing, a few sexual references, and very frequent violence and bloodshed. And the awards go to:

Best Casting Choice: Liev Schrieber (Dominic Monaghan coming in at a close second)
Worst Casting Choice: That dude from Van Wilder
Best Glam Shot: Wolverine using his claws to pull a 180 on a motorcycle while escaping from a helicopter
Worst Glam Shot: Wolverine walking away from the green-screened exploding helicopter
Adamantium – Good: We were made to wait for it just long enough to get really excited about it
Adamantium – Bad: Logan’s medical procedure didn’t seem as cool or scary as I’d imagined it to be
Best SciFi Moment: The Logan boys seeing a firing squad as a nuisance
Worst SciFi Moment: Adamantium bullets destroy memory? Really? Really?

The only thing that dogs the film is an uncompelling bad guy. This is a problem that seems to be coming up more and more in films. What happened to the villains we could fear, envy, respect, or love to hate? A bad dad masking himself in patriotism and defending non-mutantkind is kind of a worn-out plot device in the X-Men universe.

See it if you are a comic book geek, enjoy serious shirtless eye candy, or like explosions and gravity-defying fight scenes. Avoid if you are looking for a heartwarming family tale with puppies and hugs.