Wolverine, fan favourite of the X-Men universe in both comic books and film, gets his own movie vehicle with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a tale that reaches way, way back into the hairy mutant's story. Somewhere in the wilds of northwest Canada in the early 1800s, two boys grow up amid violence: half-brothers with very special powers. Eventually they will become the near-indestructible warriors (and victims of a super-secret government program) known as Wolverine and Sabretooth, played respectively by Hugh Jackman (returning to his role) and Liev Schreiber (new to the scene). It helps enormously to have Schreiber, an actor of brawny skills, as the showiest villain; the guy can put genuine menace into a vocal inflection or a shift of the eyes. Danny Huston is the sinister government operative whose experiments keep pulling Wolverine back in, Lynn Collins is the woman who shares a peaceful Canadian co-existence with our hero when he tries to drop out of the program, and Ryan Reynolds adds needed humour, at least for a while.

The fast-paced early reels give an entertaining kick-off to the Wolverine saga, only to slow down when a proper plot must be put together—but isn't that perpetually the problem with origin stories? And despite a cool setting, the grand finale is a little hemmed in by certain plot essentials that must be in place for the sequels, which may be why characters do nonsensical things. So, this one is fun while it lasts, if you're not looking for a masterpiece, or an explanation for Wolverine's facial grooming. —Robert Horton, Amazon.com

Stills from X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Click for larger image)

When Bryan Singer brought Marvel's X-Men to the big screen, Magneto and Professor X were elder statesmen, but Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) travels back in time to present an origin story—and an alternate version of history. While Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) grows up privileged in New York, Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) grows up underprivileged in Poland. As children, the mind-reading Charles finds a friend in the shape-shifting Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Erik finds an enemy in Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), an energy-absorbing Nazi scientist who treats the metal-bending lad like a lab rat. By 1962, Charles (James McAvoy) has become a swaggering genetics professor and Erik (Michael Fassbender, McAvoy's Band of Brothers costar) has become a brooding agent of revenge. CIA agent Moira (Rose Byrne) brings the two together to work for Division X. With the help of MIB (Oliver Platt) and Hank (A Single Man's Nicholas Hoult), they seek out other mutants, while fending off Shaw and Emma Frost (Mad Men's January Jones), who try to recruit them for more nefarious ends, leading to a showdown in Cuba between the United States and the Soviet Union, the good and bad mutants, and Charles and Erik, whose goals have begun to diverge. Throughout, Vaughn crisscrosses the globe, piles on the visual effects, and juices the action with a rousing score, but it's the actors who make the biggest impression as McAvoy and Fassbender prove themselves worthy successors to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. The movie comes alive whenever they take centre stage, and dies a little when they don't. For the most part, though, Vaughn does right by playing up the James Bond parallels and acknowledging the debt to producer Bryan Singer through a couple of clever cameos. —Kathleen C. Fennessy

For a movie that would like to think of itself as the future of the action / espionage picture, xXx uses a surprising number of jokes and stunts lifted directly from the Roger Moore Bond era while the actual premise resembles a sex-change for Nikita. Vin Diesel's Xander Cage—an extreme sports daredevil recruited by spymaster Samuel L Jackson for a covert mission in Prague—may be Blofeld-bald, pumped-up with testosterone, tattooed like a graffiti-covered wall and given to driving sports cars off bridges for fun, but he turns out to be a disappointingly square goodie-goodie when the quips and bullets are flying. Even the slinky heroine (Asia Argento), a double agent within a mad ex-Soviet gang called Anarchy 99, laughs at the idea that a walking cue ball with three Xs tattooed on his neck could ever be a secret agent.

There's one stunt scene that will be remembered as a classic, as xXx triggers an avalanche and snowboards ahead of the fall. But there's too much of the falling-out-of-planes, straddling-and-defusing-jet-propelled-germ-bombs, blasting-every-baddie-in-the-place business that makes it too familiar. Enough material for several great trailers, but next time they'll need a script. —Kim Newman

On the DVD: xXx comes loud and proud to DVD, with Dolby 5.1 sound and the kind of sharp screen transfer you'd expect for a movie of this magnitude. From beautiful scrolling menus based on the tattoo artwork to the brash music, this disc epitomises everything an extreme sports release should be: special features are offered in the "Zander Zone" and include a whole host of behind-the-scenes action and commentaries, made all the more interesting by Rob Cohen's reluctance to use CGI and Vin Diesel's willingness to be thrown in at the deep end. If there's one thing you should avoid, though, it's the Gavin Rossdale music video—unless of course you want to see a grown man's vanity on screen. —Nikki Disney